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A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 



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Harry Lauder and His Son, Captain John Lauder 



A MINSTREL 
IN FRANCE 



BY 



HARRY LAUDER 




NEW YORK 
HEARST'S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO. 

1918 



w\. 



A 










Copyright. 1918, by 
Hearst's International Library Co., Inc. 



All rights reserved, including the translation into foreign 
languages, including the Scandinavian 



APR 23 1918 



4 0^'" 



©Cl.A497i:j2 



yi-o I 



TO 

The Memory of My Beloved Son 

CAPTAIN JOHN LAUDER 

First 8th, Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders rf 

Killed in France, December 28, 1916 

Oh, there's sometimes I am lonely 

And I'm weary a' the day 

To see the face and clasp the hand 

Of him who is away. 

The only one God gave me. 

My one and only joy. 

My life and love were centered on 

My one and only boy. 

I saw him in his infant days 

Grow up from year to year. 

That he would some day be a man 

I never had a fear. 

His mother watched his every step, 

'Twas our united joy 

To think that he might be one day 

My one and only boy. 

When war broke out he buckled on 
His sword, and said, " Good-bye, 
For I must do my duty, Dad; 
Tell Mother not to cry, 
Tell her that I'll come back again." 
What happiness and joy! 
But no, he died for Liberty, 
My one and only boy. 

The days are long, the nights are drear. 

The anguish breaks my heart. 

But oh! I'm proud my one and only 

Laddie played his part. 

For God knows best. His will be done. 

His grace does me employ. 

I do believe I'll meet again 

My one and only boy. 




Copyright 1918 by Harry Lauder. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTBR PAGE 

I 1 

II 11 

III 25 

IV 33 

V 42 

VI 52 

VII 61 

VIII 71 

IX 80 

X 91 

XI 107 

XII 118 

XIII 131 

XIV 146 

XV 164 

XVI 180 

XVII 200 

XVIII 217 

XIX 236 

XX 247 

XXI . 261 

XXII 274 

XXIII 285 

XXIV 293 

XXV 304 

XXVI 316 

XXVII 323 

XXVIII 330 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Harry Lauder and His Son, Captain John Lauder 

Frontispiece 



FACINS 
PAOR 



* ' I did not stop at sending out my recruiting band. 

I went out myself" 30 

" 'Carry On!' were the last words of my boy, Cap- 
tain John Lauder, to his men, but he would 
mean them for me, too" 56 

"Bang! Went Sixpence" 98 

Harry Lauder preserves the bonnet of his son, 
brought to him from where the lad fell. ' ' The 
memory of his boy, it is almost his religion." 
— A tatter of plaid of the Black Watch on a 
wire of a German entanglement barely sug- 
gests the hell the Scotch troops have gone 
through 130 

Captain John Lauder and Comrades Before the 

Trenches in France 180 

" 'Make us laugh again, Harry!' Though I re- 
member my son and want to join the ranks, I 
have obeyed" 232 

Harry Lauder, "Laird of Dunoon" . . . 256 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 



CHAPTER I 

YON days ! Yon palmy, peaceful days ! I go 
back to them, and they are as a dream. I 
go back to them again and again, and live 
them over. Yon days of another age, the age of 
peace, when no man dared even to dream of such 
times as have come upon us. 

It was in November of 1913, and I was setting 
forth upon a great journey, that was to take me 
to the other side of the world before I came back 
again to my wee hoose amang the heather at 
Dunoon. My wife was going with me, and my 
brother-in-law, Tom Vallance, for they go every- 
where with me. But my son John was coming 
with us only to Glasgow, and then, when we set 
out for Liverpool and the steamer that was to 
bring us to America he was to go back to Cam- 
bridge. He was near done there, the bonnie lad- 
die. He had taken his degree as Bachelor of Arts, 
and was to set out soon upon a trip around the 
world. 

Was that no a fine plan I had made for my son? 
That great voyage he was to have, to see the 
world and all its peoples! It was proud I was 
that I could give it to him. He was — ^but it may 
be I'll tell you more of John later in this book! 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 



My pen runs awa' with me, and my tongue, too, 
when I think of my boy John. 

We came to the pier at Dunoon, and there she 
lay, the little ferry steamer, the black smoke curl- 
ing from her stack straight up to God. Ah, the 
braw day it was ! There was a frosty sheen upon 
the heather, and the Clyde was calm as glass. The 
tops of the hills were coated with snow, and they 
stood out against the horizon like great big sugar 
loaves. 

We were a' happy that day! There was a 
crowd to see us off. They had come to bid me 
farewell and godspeed, all my friends and my 
relations, and I went among them, shaking them 
by the hand and thinking of the long whiles before 
I'd be seeing f em again. And then all my good- 
bys were sai'^, and we went aboard, and my 
voyage had bejun, 

I looked back at the hills and the heather, and 
I thought of all I was to do and see before I saw 
those hills again. I was going half way round 
the world and back again. I was going to won- 
derful places to see wonderful things and curious 
faces. But oftenest the thought came to me, as 
I looked at my son, that him I would see again 
before I saw the heather and the hills and all the 
friends and the relations I was leaving behind 
me. For on his trip around the world he was to 
meet us in Australia ! It was easier to leave him, 
easier to set out, knowing that, thinking of that! 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 



Wonderful places I went to, surely. And won- 
derful things I saw and heard. But the most 
wonderful thing of all that I was to see or hear 
upon that voyage I did not dream of nor foresee. 
How was a mortal man to foresee ? How was he 
to dream of it? 

Could I guess that the very next time I set out 
from Dunoon pier the peaceful Clyde would be 
dotted with patrol boats, dashing hither and 
thither! Could I guess that everywhere there 
would be boys in khaki, and women weeping, and 

that my boy, John ! Ah, but I'll not tell you 

of that now. 

Peaceful the Clyde had been, and peaceful was 
the Mersey when we sailed from Liverpool for 
New York. I look back on yon voyage — the last 
I took that way in days of peace. Next time ! 
Destroyers to guard us from the Hun and his sub- 
marines, and to lay us a safe course through the 
mines. And sailor boys, about their guns, watch- 
ing, sweeping the sea every minute for the flash 
of a sneaking pirate's periscope showing for a 
second above a wave ! 

But then! It was a quiet trip, with none but 
the ups and doons of every Atlantic crossing — 
more ups than doons, I'm telling you! 

I was glad to be in America again, glad to see 
once more the friends I 'd made. They turned out 
to meet me and to greet me in New York, and as 
I travelled across the continent to San Francisco 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 



it was the same. Everywhere I had friends; 
everywhere they came crowding to shake me by 
the hand with a ^'How are you the day, 
Harry?'' 

It was a long trip, but it was a happy one. 
How long ago it seems now, as I write, in this new 
day of war! How far away are all the common, 
kindly things that then I did not notice, and that 
now I would give the world and a' to have back 
again ! 

Then, everywhere I went, they pressed their 
dainties upon me whenever I sat down for a sup 
and a bite. The board groaned with plenty. I 
was in a rich country, a country where there was 
enough for all, and to spare. And now, as I am 
writing I am travelling again across America. 
And there is not enough. When I sit down at 
table there is a card of Herbert Hoover's, bidding 
me be careful how I eat and what I choose. Ay, 
but he has no need to warn me ! Well I know the 
truth, and how America is helping to feed her 
allies over there, and so must be sparing herself. 

To think of it ! In yon far day the world was 
all at peace. And now that great America, that 
gave so little thought to armies and to cannon, is 
fighting with my ain British against the Hun ! 

It was in March of 1914 that we sailed from 
San Francisco, on the tenth of the month. It was 
a glorious day as we stood on the deck of the old 
Pacific liner Sonoma. I was eager and glad to 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 



be off. To be sure, America had been kinder to 
me than ever, and I was loath, in a way, to be 
leaving her and all the friends of mine she held 
— old friends of years, and new ones made on that 
trip. But I was coming back. And then there 
was one great reason for my eagerness that few 
folk knew — that my son John was coming to meet 
me in Australia. I was missing him sore already. 

They came aboard the old tubby liner to see us 
off, friends by the score. They kept me busy 
shaking hands. 

"Good-by, Harry," they said. And "Good 
luck, Harry," they cried. And just before the 
bugles sounded all ashore I heard a few of them 
crooning an old Scots song: 

"Will ye no come back again?" 

"Aye, I'll come back again!" I told them when 
I heard them. 

"Good, Harry, good!" they cried back to me. 
"It's a promise! We'll be waiting for you — 
waiting to welcome you ! ' ' 

And so we sailed from San Francisco and from 
America, out through the Golden Gate, toward the 
sunset. Here was beauty for me, who loved it — 
a new beauty, such as I had not seen before. They 
were quiet days, happy days, peaceful days. I 
was tired after my long tour, and the days at sea 
rested me, with good talk when I craved it, and 
time to sleep, and no need to give thought to 
trains, or to think, when I went to bed, that in 



6 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

the night they'd rouse me from my sleep by 
switching my car and giving me a bump. 

We came first to Hawaii, and I fell in love with 
the harbor of Honolulu as we sailed in. Here, at 
last, I began to see the strange sights and hear the 
strange sounds I had been looking forward to 
ever since I left my wee hoose at Dunoon. Here 
was something that was different from anything 
that I had ever seen before. 

We did not stay so long. On the way home I 
was to stay over and give a performance in 
Honolulu, but not now. Our time was given up 
to sight seeing, and to meeting some of the folk 
of the islands. They ken hospitality! We made 
many new friends there, short as the time was. 
And, man ! The lassies ! You want to cuddle the 
first lassie you meet when you step ashore at 
Honolulu. But you don't — if the wife is there! 

It was only because I knew that we were to stop 
longer on the way back that I was willing to leave 
Honolulu at all. So we sailed on, toward Aus- 
tralia. And now I knew that my boy was about 
setting out on his great voyage around the world. 
Day by day I would get out the map, and try to 
prick the spot where he'd be. 

And I'd think: ''Aye! When I'm here John '11 
be there ! Will he be nearer to me than nowT' 

Thinking of the braw laddie, setting out, so 
proud and happy, made me think of my ain young 
days. My father couldna' give me such a chance 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 



as my boy was to have. I'd worked in the mines 
before I was John's age. There 'd been no Cam- 
bridge for me — no trip around the world as a part 
of my education. And I thanked God that he was 
letting me do so much for my boy. 

Aye, and he deserved it, did John ! He 'd done 
well at Cambridge; he had taken honors there. 
And soon he was to go up to London to read for 
the Bar. He was to be a barrister, in wig and 
gown, my son, John! 

It was of him, and of the meeting we were all 
to have in Australia, that I thought, more than 
anything else, in the long, long days upon the sea. 
We sailed on from Honolulu until we came to 
Paga-Paga. So it is spelled, but all the natives 
call it Panga-Panga. 

Here I saw more and yet more of the strange 
and wonderful things I had thought upon so long 
back, in Dunoon. Here I saw mankind, for the 
first time, in a natural state. I saw men who wore 
only the figleaf of old Father Adam, and a people 
who lived from day to day, and whom the kindly 
earth sustained. 

They lived entirely from vegetables and from 
clear crystal streams and upon marvelous fish 
from the sea. Ah, how I longed to stay in Paga- 
Paga and be a natural man. But I must go on. 
Work called me back to civilization and sorrow- 
fully I heeded its call and waved good-by to the 
natural folk of Paga-Paga ! 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 



It was before I came to Paga-Paga that I wrote 
a little verse inspired by Honolulu. Perhaps, if 
I had gone first to Paga-Paga — don't forget to 
put in the n and call it Panga-Panga when you 
say it to yourself! — I might have written it of 
that happy island of the natural folk. But I did 
not, so here is the verse : 

I love you, Honolulu, Honolulu I love you! 

You are the Queen of the Sea! 

Your valleys and mountains 

Your palais and fountains 

Forever and ever will be dear to me! 

I wedded a simple melody to those simple, heart- 
felt lines, and since then I have sung the song in 
pretty nearly every part of the world — and in 
Honolulu itself. 

Our journey was drawing to its end. We were 
coming to a strange land indeed. And yet I knew 
there were Scots folk there — where in the world 
are there not? I thought they would be glad to 
see me, but how could I be sure? It was a far, 
far cry from Dunoon and the Clyde and the frost 
upon the heather on the day I had set out. 

We were to land at Sydney. I was a wee bit 
impatient after we had made our landfall, while 
the old Sonoma poked her way along. But she 
would not be hurried by my impatience. And at 
last we came to the Sydney Heads — the famous 
Harbor Heads. If you have never seen it I do 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 



not know how better to tell you of it than to say 
that it makes me think of the entrance to a great 
cave that has no roof. In we went — and were 
within that great, nearly landlocked harbor. 

And what goings on there were! The harbor 
was full of craft, both great and sma '. And each 
had all her bunting flying. Oh, they were braw 
in the sunlight, with the gay colors and the bits 
of flags, all fluttering and waving in the breeze! 

And what a din there was, with the shrieking 
of the whistle and the foghorns and the sirens and 
the clamor of bells. It took my breath away, and 
I wondered what was afoot. And on the shore 
I could see that thousands of people waited, all 
crowded together by the water side. There were 
flags flying, too, from all the buildings. 

*'It must be that the King is coming in on a 
visit — and I never to have heard of it!" I thought. 

And then they made me understand that it was 
all for me ! 

If there were tears in my eyes when they made 
me believe that, will you blame me? There was 
that great harbor, all alive with the welcome they 
made for me. And on the shore, they told me, a 
hundred thousand were waiting to greet me and 
bid me: 

*' Welcome, Harry!" 

The tramways had stopped running until they 
had done \vith their welcome to me. And all over 
the city, as we drove to our hotel, they roared 



10 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

their welcome, and there were flags along the 
way. 

That was the proudest day I had ever known. 
But one thing made me wistful and wishful. I 
wanted my boy to be there with us. I wished he 
had seen how they had greeted his Dad. Nothing 
pleased him more than an honor that came to me. 
And here was an honor indeed — a reception the 
like of which I had never seen. 



CHAPTER II 

IT was on the twenty-ninth day of March, in 
that year of 1914 that dawned in peace and 
happiness and set in blood and death and 
bitter sorrow, that we landed in Sydney. Soon 
I went to work. Everywhere my audiences 
showed me that that great and wonderful recep- 
tion that had been given to me on the day we 
landed had been only an earnest of what was to 
come. They greeted me everywhere with cheers 
and tears, and everywhere we made new friends, 
and sometimes found old ones of whom we had 
not heard for years. 

And I was thinking all the time, now, of my 
boy. He was on his way. He was on the Pacific. 
He was coming to me, across the ocean, and I 
could smile as I thought of how this thing and that 
would strike him, and of the smile that would light 
up his face now and the look of joy that would 
come into his eyes at the sudden sighting of some 
beautiful spot. Oh, aye — those were happy days 
when each one brought my boy nearer to me. 

One day, I mind, the newspapers were full of 
the tale of a crime in an odd spot in Europe that 
none of us had ever heard of before. You mind 
the place? Serajevo! Aye — we all mind it now ! 

11 



12 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

But then we read, and wondered how that out- 
landish name might be pronounced. A foreigner 
was murdered — what if he was a prince, the Arch- 
duke of Austria? Need we fash ourselves about 
him? 

And so we read, and were sorry, a little, for 
the puir lady who sat beside the Archduke and 
was killed with him. And then we forgot it. All 
Australia did. There was no more in the news- 
papers. And my son John was coming — coming. 
Each day he was so many hundred miles nearer 
to me. And at last he came. We were in Mel- 
bourne then, it was near to the end of July. 

We had much to talk about — son, and his 
mother and I. It was long months since we had 
seen him, and we had seen and done so much. 
The time flew by. Maybe we did not read the 
papers so carefully as we might have done. They 
tell me, they have told me, since then, that in 
Europe and even in America, there was some 
warning after Austria moved on Serbia. But I 
believe that down there in Australia they did not 
dream of danger ; that they were far from under- 
standing the meaning of the news the papers did 
print. They were so far away! 

And then, you ken, it came upon us like a clap 
of thunder. One night it began. There was war 
in Europe — real war. Germany had attacked 
France and Russia. She was moving troops 
through Belgium. And every Briton knew what 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 



that must mean. Would Britain be drawn in I 
There was the question that was on every man's 
tongue. 

''What do you think, son?" I asked John. 

"I think we'll go in," he said. ''And if we do, 
you know, Dad — they'll send for me to come home 
at once. I'm on leave from the summer training 
camp now to make this trip." 

My boy, two years before, had joined the Ter- 
ritorial army. He was a second lieutenant in a 
Territorial battalion of the Argyle and Suther- 
land Highlanders. It was much as if he had been 
an officer in a National Guard regiment in the 
United States. The territorial army was not 
bound to serve abroad — but who could doubt that 
it would, and gladly. As it did — to a man, to a 
man. 

But it was a shock to me when John said that. 
I had not thought that war, even if it came, could 
come home to us so close — and so soon. 

Yet so it was. The next day was the fourth of 
August — my birthday. And it was that day that 
Britain declared war upon Germany. We sat at 
lunch in the hotel at Melbourne when the news- 
boys began to cry the extras. And we were still 
at lunch when the hall porter came in from 
outside. 

"Lef tenant Lauder!" he called, over and over. 
John beckoned to him, and he handed my laddie 
a cablegram. 



14. A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

Just two words there were, that had come sing- 
ing along the wires half way around the world. 

"Mobilize. Eeturn." 

John's eyes were bright. They were shining. 
He was looking at us, but he was not seeing us. 
Those eyes of his were seeing distant things. My 
heart was sore within me, but I was proud and 
happy that it was such a son I had to give my 
country. 

"What do you think, Dad!" he asked me, when 
I had read the order. 

I think I was gruff because I dared not let him 
see how I felt. His mother was very pale. 

"This is no time for thinking, son," I said. 
"It is the time for action. You know your duty." 

He rose from the table, quickly. 

"I'm off!" he said. 

"Where?" I asked him. 

"To the ticket office to see about changing my 
berth. There's a steamer this week — maybe I 
can still find room aboard her." 

He was not long gone. He and his chum went 
down together and he came back smiling tri- 
umphantly. 

"It's all right. Dad," he told me. "I go to 
Adelaide by train and get the steamer there. I'll 
have time to see you and mother off — yiour 
steamer goes two hours before my train." 

We were going to New Zealand, And my boy 
was going home to fight for his country. They 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 15 

would call me too old, I knew — I was forty-four 
the day Britain declared war. 

What a turmoil there was about us! So fast 
were things moving that there seemed no time for 
thought. John's mother and I could not realize 
the full meaning of all that was happening. But 
we knew that John was snatched away from us 
just after he had come, and it was hard — it was 
cruelly hard. 

But such thoughts were drowned in the great, 
surging excitement that was all about us. In 
Melbourne, and I believe it must have been much 
the same elsewhere in Australia, folks didn't 
know what they were to do, how they were to take 
this war that had come so suddenly upon them. 
And rumors and questions flew in all directions. 

Suppose the Germans came to Australia? Was 
there a chance of that? They had islands, naval 
bases, not so far away. They were Australia's 
neighbors. What of the German navy? Was it 
out? Were there scattered ships, here and there, 
that might swoop down upon Australia's shores 
and bring death and destruction with them? 

But even before we sailed, next day, I could see 
that order was coming out of that chaos. Every- 
where recruiting offices were opening, and men 
were flocking to them. No one dreamed, really, 
of a long war — though John laughed, sadly, when 
someone said it would be over in four months. 
But these Australians took no chances; they 



16 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

would offer themselves first, and let it be decided 
later whether they were needed. 

So we sailed away. And when I took John's 
hand, and kissed him good-by, I saw him for the 
last time in his civilian clothes. 

"Well, son," I said, "you're going home to be a 
soldier, a fighting soldier. You will soon be com- 
manding men. Kemember that you can never ask 
a man to do something you would no dare to do 
yourself!" 

And, oh, the braw look in the eyes of the bonnie 
laddie as he tilted his chin up to me ! 

* ' I will remember. Dad ! " he said. 

And so long as a bit of the dock was in sight 
we could see him waving to us. We were not to 
see him again until the next January, at Bedford, 
in England, where he was training the raw men 
of his company. 

Those were the first days of war. The British 
navy was on guard. From every quarter the 
whimpering wireless brought news of this Ger- 
man warship and that. They were scattered far 
and wide, over the Seven Seas, you ken, when the 
war broke out. There was no time for them to 
make a home port. They had their choice, most 
of them, between being interned in some neutral 
port and setting out to do as much mischief as 
they could to British commerce before they were 
caught. Caught they were sure to be. They must 
have known it. And some there were to brave the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 17 

issue and match themselves against England's 
great naval power. 

Perhaps they knew that few ports would long 
be neutral ! Maybe they knew of the abominable 
war the Hun was to wage. But I think it was not 
such men as those who chose to take their one 
chance in a thousand who were sent out, later, in 
their submarines, to send women and babies to 
their deaths with their torpedoes ! 

Be that as it may, we sailed away from Mel- 
bourne. But it was in Sydney Harbor that we 
anchored next — not in Wellington, as we, on the 
ship, all thought it would be ! And the reason was 
that the navy, getting word that the German 
cruiser Emden was loose and raiding, had ordered 
our captain to hug the shore, and to put in at 
Sydney until he was told it was safe to proceed. 

We were not much delayed, and came to Well- 
ington safely. New Zealand was all ablaze with 
the war spirit. There was no hesitation there. 
The New Zealand troops were mobilizing when 
we arrived, and every recruiting office was be- 
sieged with men. Splendid laddies they were, 
who looked as if they Avould give a great account 
of themselves. As they did — as they did. Their 
deeds at Gallipoli speak for them and will forever 
speak for them — the men of Australia and New 
Zealand. 

There the word Anzac was made — ^made from 
the first letters of these words: Australian New 



18 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

Zealand Army Corps. It is a word that will 
never die. 

Even in the midst of war they had time to give 
me a welcome that warmed my heart. And there 
were pipers with them, too, skirling a tune as I 
stepped ashore. There were tears in my eyes 
again, as there had been at Sydney. Every laddie 
in uniform made me think of my own boy, well 
off, by now, on his way home to Britain and the 
duty that had called him. 

They were gathering, all over the Empire, those 
of British blood. They were answering the call 
old Britain had sent across the seven seas to the 
far corners of the earth. Even as the Scottish 
clans gathered of old the greater British clans 
were gathering now. It was a great thing to see 
that in the beginning ; it has comforted me many a 
time since, in a black hour, when news was bad 
and the Hun was thundering at the line that was 
so thinly held in France. 

Here were free peoples, not held, not bound, 
free to choose their way. Britain could not make 
their sons come to her aid. If they came they 
must come freely, joyously, knowing that it was a 
right cause, a holy cause, a good cause, that called 
them. I think of the way they came — of the way 
I saw them rising to the summons, in New Zea- 
land, in Australia, later in Canada. Aye, and I 
saw more — I saw Americans slipping across the 
border, putting on Britain's khaki there in 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 19 

Canada, because they knew that it was the fight 
of humanity, of freedom, that they were entering. 
And that, too, gave me comfort later in dark 
times, for it made me know that when the right 
time came America would take her place beside 
old Britain and brave France. 

New Zealand is a bonnie land. It made me 
think, sometimes, of the Hielands of Scotland. A 
bonnie land, and braw are its people. They made 
me happy there, and they made much of me. 

At Christchurch they did a strange thing. They 
were selling off, at auction, a Union Jack — the 
flag of Britain. Such a thing had never been done 
before, or thought of. But here was a reason and 
a good one. Money was needed for the laddies 
who were going — needed for all sorts of things. 
To buy them small comforts, and tobacco, and 
such things as the government might not be sup- 
plying them. And so they asked me to be their 
auctioneer. 

I played a fine trick upon them there in Christ- 
church. But I was not ashamed of myself, and 
I think they have forgi'en me — those good bodies 
at Christchurch! 

Here was the way of it. I w^as auctioneer, you 
ken — but that was not enough to keep me from 
bidding myself. And so I worked them up and 
on — and then I bid in the flag for myself for a 
hundred pounds — five hundred dollars of Ameri- 
can money. 



20 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

I had my doots about how they'd be taking it 
to have a stranger carry their flag away. And so 
I bided a wee. I stayed that night in Christ- 
church, and was to stay longer. I could wait. 
Above yon town of Christchurch stretch the 
Merino Hills. On them graze sheep by the thou- 
sand — and it is from those sheep that the true 
Merino wool comes. And in the gutters of Christ- 
church there flows, all day long, a stream of water 
as clear and pure as ever you might hope to see. 
And it should be so, for it is from artesian wells 
that it is pumped. 

Aweel, I bided that night and by next day they 
were murmuring in the town, and their murmurs 
came to me. They thought it wasna richt for a 
Scotsman to be carrying off their flag — though 
he'd bought it and paid for it. And so at last 
they came to me, and wanted to be buying back 
the flag. And I was agreeable. 

"X Aye— I'll sell it back to ye!" I told them. 
"But at a price, ye ken — at a price! Pay 
me twice what I paid for it and it shall be 
yours ! ' ' 

There was a Scots bargain for you ! They must 
have thought me mean and grasping that day. 
But out they went. They worked for the money. 
It was but just a month after war had been de- 
clared, and money was still scarce and shy of 
peeping out and showing itself. But, bit by bit, 
they got the siller. A shilling at a time they 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 21 

raised, by subscription. But they got it all, and 
brought it to me, smiling the while. 

"Here, Harry — here's your money!" they said. 
*'Now give us back our flag!" 

Back to them I gave it — and with it the money 
they had brought, to be added to the fund for the 
soldier boys. And so that one flag brought three 
hundred pounds sterling to the soldiers. I wonder 
did those folk at Christchurch think I would keep 
the money and make a profit on that flag? 

Had it been another time I'd have stayed in 
New Zealand gladly a long time. It was a friendly 
place, and it gave us many a new friend. But 
home was calling me. There was more than the 
homebound tour that had been planned and laid 
out for me. I did not know how soon my boy 
might be going to France. And his mother and 
I wanted to see him again before he went, and 
to be as near him as might be. 

So I was glad as well as sorry to sail away from 
New Zealand's friendly shores, to the strains of 
pipers softly skirling: 

''Will ye no come back again?" 

We sailed for Sydney on the Minnehaha, a fast 
boat. We were glad of her speed a day or so out, 
for there was smoke on the horizon that gave 
some anxious hours to our officers. Some thought 
the German raider Emden was under that smoke. 
And it would not have been surprising had a 
raider turned up in our path. For just before we 



22 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

sailed it had been discovered that the man in 
charge of the principal wireless station in New 
Zealand was a German, and he had been interned. 
Had he sent word to German warships of the 
plans and movements of British ships? No one 
could prove it, so he was only interned. 

Back we went to Sydney. A great change had 
come since our departure. The war ruled all deed 
and thought. Australia was bound now to do her 
part. No less faithfully and splendidly than New 
Zealand was she engaged upon the enterprise the 
Hun had thrust upon the world. Everyone was 
eager for news, but it was woefully scarce. Those 
were the black, early days, when the German rush 
upon Paris was being stayed, after the disasters 
of the first fortnight of the war, at the Marne. 

Everywhere, though there was no lack of de- 
termination to see the war through to a finish, no 
matter how remote that might be, the feeling was 
that this war was too huge, too vast, to last long. 
Exhaustion would end it. War upon the modern 
scale could not last. So they said — in Septem- 
ber, 1914! So many of us believed — and this is 
the spring of the fourth year of the war, and the 
end is not yet, is not in sight, I fear. 

Sydney turned out, almost as magnificently as 
when I had first landed upon Australian soil, to 
bid me farewell. And we embarked again upon 
that same old Sonoma that had brought us to 
Australia. Again I saw Paga-Paga and the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE gS 

natural folk, who had no need to toil nor spin to 
live upon the fat of the land and be arrayed in 
the garments that were always up to the minute 
in style. 

Again I saw Honolulu, and, this time, stayed 
longer, and gave a performance. But, though we 
were there longer, it was not long enough to make 
me yield to that temptation to cuddle one of the 
brown lassies! Aweel, I was not so young as I 
had been, and Mrs. Lauder — you ken that she was 
travelling with me ? 

In the harbor of Honolulu there was a German 
gunboat, the Geier, that had run there for shelter 
not long since, and had still left a day or two, 
under the orders from Washington, to decide 
whether she would let herself be interned or not. 
And outside, beyond the three mile limit that 
marked the end of American territorial waters, 
were two good reasons to make the German think 
well of being interned. They were two cruisers, 
squat and ugly and vicious in their gray war 
paint, that watched the entrance to the harbor as 
you have seen a cat watching a rat hole. 

It was not Britain's white ensign that they flew, 
those cruisers. It was the red sun flag of Japan, 
one of Britain's allies against the Hun. They had 
their vigil in vain, did those two cruisers. It was 
valor's better part, discretion, that the German 
captain chose. Aweel, you could no blame him I 
He and his ship would have been blown out of the 



24 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

water so soon as she poked her nose beyond 
American waters, had he chosen to go out and 
fight. 

I was glad indeed when we came in sight of the 
Golden Gate once more, and when we were safe 
ashore in San Francisco. It had been a nerve- 
racking voyage in many ways. My wife and I 
were torn with anxiety about our boy. And there 
were German raiders loose; one or two had, so 
far, eluded the cordon the British fleet had flung 
about the world. One night, soon after we left 
Honolulu, we were stopped. We thought it was a 
British cruiser that stopped us, but she would 
only ask questions — answering those we asked 
was not for her ! 

But we were ashore at last. There remained 
only the trip across the United States to New 
York and the voyage across the Atlantic home. 



CHAPTER III 

NOW indeed we began to get real news of the 
war. We heard of how that little British 
army had flung itself into the maw of the 
Hun. I came to know something of the glories of 
the retreat from Mons, and of how French and 
British had turned together at the Marne and had 
saved Paris. But, alas, I heard too of how many 
brave men had died — had been sacrificed, many 
and many a man of them, to the failure of Britain 
to prepare. 

That was past and done. What had been wrong 
was being mended now. Better, indeed — ah, a 
thousand times better! — had Britain given heed 
to Lord Roberts, when he preached the gospel of 
readiness and prayed his countrymen to prepare 
for the war that he in his wisdom had foreseen. 
But it was easier now to look into the future. 

I could see, as all the world was beginning to 
see, that this war was not like other wars. Lord 
Kitchener had said that Britain must make ready 
for a three year war, and I, for one, believed him 
when others scoffed, and said he was talking so 
to make the recruits for his armies come faster- 
to the colors. I could see that this war might last 

25 



26 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

for years. And it was then, back in 1914, in the 
first winter of the war, that I began to warn my 
friends in America that they might well expect 
the Hnn to drag them into the war before its end. 
And I made up my mind that I must beg Ameri- 
cans who would listen to me to prepare. 

So, all the way across the continent, I spoke, in 
every town we visited, on that subject of prepar- 
edness. I had seen Britain, living in just such a 
blissful anticipation of eternal peace as America 
then dreamed of. I had heard, for years, every 
attempt that was made to induce Britain to in- 
crease her army met with the one, unvarying 
reply. 

**We have our fleet!" That was the answer 
that was made. And, be it remembered, that at 
sea, Britain was prepared! ''We have our fleet. 
We need no army. If there is a Continental war, 
we may not be drawn in at all. Even if we are, 
they can't reach us. The fleet is between us and 
invasion." 

''But," said the advocates of preparedness, 
"we might have to send an expeditionary force. 
If France were attacked, we should have to help 
her on land as well as at sea. And we have sent 
armies to the continent before." 

"Yes," the other would reply. "We have an 
expeditionary force. We can send more than a 
hundred thousand men across the channel at short 
notice — the shortest. And we can train more men 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 27 

here, at home, in case of need. The fleet makes 
that possible." 

Aye, the fleet made that possible. The world 
may well thank God for the British fleet. I do 
not know, and I do not like to think, what might 
have come about save for the British fleet. But 
I do know what came to that expeditionary force 
that we sent across the channel quickly, to the 
help of our sore stricken ally, France. How many 
of that old British army still survive? 

They gave themselves utterly. They were the 
pick and the flower of our trained manhood. 
They should have trained the millions who were 
to rise at Kitchener's call. But they could not be 
held back. They are gone. Others have risen up 
to take their places — ten for one — a hundred for 
one! But had they been ready at the start! 
The bonnie laddies who would be living now, in- 
stead of lying in an unmarked grave in France or 
Flanders! The women whose eyes would never 
have been reddened by their weeping as they 
mourned a son or a brother or a husband! 

So I was thinking as I set out to talk to my 
American friends and beg them to prepare — pre- 
pare! I did not want to see this country share 
the experience of Britain. If she needs must be 
drawn into the war — and so I believed, pro- 
foundly, from the time when I first learned the 
true measure of the Hun — I hoped that she might 
be ready when she drew her mighty sword. 



28 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

They thought I was mad, at first, many of those 
to whom I talked. They were so far away from 
the war. And already the propaganda of the Ger- 
mans was at work. Aye, they thought I was rav- 
ing when I told them I'd stake my word on it. 
America would never be able to stay out until the 
end. They listened to me. They were willing to 
do that. But they listened, doubtingly. I think 
I convinced few of ought save that I believed 
myself what I was saying. 

I could tell them, do you ken, that I'd thought, 
at first, as they did! Why, over yon, in Aus- 
tralia, when I'd first heard that the Germans were 
attacking France, I was sorry, for France is a 
bonnie land. But the idea that Britain might go 
in I, even then, had laughed at. And then Britain 
had gone in ! My own boy had gone to the war. 
For all I knew I might be reading of him, any day, 
when I read of a charge or a fight over there in 
France ! Anything was possible — aye, probable ! 

I have never called myself a prophet. But 
then, I think, I had something of a prophet's vi- 
sion. And all the time I was struggling with my 
growing belief that this was to be a long war, and 
a merciless war. I did not want to believe some 
of the things I knew I must believe. But every 
day came news that made conviction sink in 
deeper and yet deeper. 

It was not a happy trip, that one across the 
United States. Our friends did all they could to 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 29 

make it so, but we were consumed by too many 
anxieties and cares. How different was it from 
my journey westward — only nine months earlier ! 
The world had changed forever in those nine 
months. 

Everjrwhere I spoke for preparedness. I ad- 
dressed the Rotary Clubs, and great audiences 
turned out to listen to me. I am a Eotarian 
myself, and I am proud indeed that I may so pro- 
claim myself. It is a great organization. Those 
who came to hear me were cordial, nearly always. 
But once or twice I met hostility, veiled but not 
to be mistaken. And it was easy to trace it to 
its source. Germans, who loved the country they 
had left behind them to come to a New World that 
offered them a better home and a richer life than 
they could ever have aspired to at home, were 
often at the bottom of the opposition to Avhat I 
had to say. 

They did not want America to prepare, lest her 
weight be flung into the scale against Germany. 
And there were those who hated Britain. Some 
of these remembered old wars and grudges that 
sensible folk had forgotten long since; others, it 
may be, had other motives. But there was little 
real opposition to what I had to say. It was 
more a good natured scoffing, and a feeling that 
I was cracked a wee bit, perhaps, about the war. 

I was not sorry to see New York again. We 
stayed there but one day, and then sailed for home 



30 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

on the Cunarder Orduna — which has since been 
sunk, like many another good ship, by the Hun 
submarines. 

But those were the days just before the Hun 
began his career of real frightfulness upon the 
sea — and under it. Even the Hun came gradually 
to the height of his powers in this war. It was 
not until some weeks later that he startled the 
world by proclaiming that every ship that dared 
to cross a certain zone of the sea would be sunk 
without warning. 

When we sailed upon the old Orduna we had 
anxieties, to be sure. The danger of striking a 
mine was never absent, once we neared the British 
coasts. There was always the chance, we knew, 
that some German raider might have slipped 
through the cordon in the North Sea. But the 
terrors that were to follow the crime of the 
Lusitania still lay in the future. They were 
among the things no man could foresee. 

The Orduna brought us safe to the Mersey and 
we landed at Liverpool. Even had there been no 
thought of danger to the ship, that voyage would 
have been a hard one for us to endure. We never 
ceased thinking of John, longing for him and news 
of him. It was near Christmas, but we had small 
hope that we should be able to see him on that 
day. 

All through the voyage we were shut away from 
all news. The wireless is silenced in time of war, 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 31 

save for such work as the govenunent allows. 
There is none of the free sending, from shore to 
ship, and ship to ship, of all the news of the world, 
such as one grows to welcome in time of peace. 
And so, from New York until we neared the Brit- 
ish coast, we brooded, all of us. How fared it 
with Britain in the war? Had the Hun launched 
some new and terrible attack? 

But two days out from home we saw a sight 
to make us glad and end our brooding for a space. 

''Eh, Harry — come and look yon!" someone 
called to me. It was early in the morning, and 
there was a mist about us. 

I went to the rail and looked in the direction 
I was told. And there, rising suddenly out of the 
mist, shattering it, I saw great, gray ships — war- 
ships — British battleships and cruisers. There 
they were, some of the great ships that are the 
steel wall around Britain that holds her safe. My 
heart leaped with joy and pride at the sight of 
them, those great, gray guardians of the British 
shores, bulwarks of steel that fend all foemen 
from the rugged coast and the fair land that lies 
behind it. 

Now we were safe, ourselves ! Who would not 
trust the British navy, after the great deeds it has 
done in this war? For there, mind you, is the one 
force that has never failed. The British navy has 
done what it set out to do. It has kept command 
of the seas. The submarines? The tin fish? 



S2 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

They do not command the sea ! Have they kept 
Canada's men, and America's, from reaching 
France? 

When we landed my first inquiry was for my 
son John. He was well, and he was still in Eng- 
land, in training at Bedford with his regiment, the 
Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders. But it was 
as we had feared. Our Christmas must be kept 
apart. And so the day before Christmas found 
us back in our wee hoose on the Clyde, at Dunoon. 
But we thought of little else but the laddie who 
was making ready to fight for us, and of the day, 
that was coming soon, when we should see him. 



CHAPTER IV; 

IT was a fitting place to train men for war, Bed- 
ford, where John was with his regiment, and 
where his mother and I went to see him so 
soon as we could after Christmas. It is in the Brit- 
ish midlands, but before the factory towns begin. 
It is a pleasant, smiling country, farming country, 
mostly, with good roads, and fields that gave the 
boys chances to learn the work of digging trenches 
— aye, and living in them afterward. 

Bedford is one of the great school towns of 
England. Low, rolling hills lie about it ; the river 
Ouse, a wee, quiet stream, runs through it. 
Schooling must be in the air of Bedford ! Three 
great schools for boys are there, and two for 
girls. And Liberty is in the air of Bedford, too, 
I think! John Bunyan was born two miles from 
Bedford, and his old house still stands in Elstow, 
a little village of old houses and great oaks. And 
it was in Bedford Jail that Bunyan was impris- 
oned because he would fight for the freedom of 
his own soul. 

John was waiting to greet us, and he looked 
great. He had two stars now where he had one 
before — ^he had been promoted to first lieutenant. 
There were curious changes in the laddie I re- 

33 



34 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

membered. He was bigger, I thought, and he 
looked older, and graver. But that I could not 
wonder at. He had a great responsibility. The 
lives of other men had been entrusted to him, and 
John was not the man to take a responsibility like 
that lightly. 

I saw him the first day I was at Bedford, lead- 
ing some of his men in a practice charge. Big, 
braw laddies they were — all in their kilts. He ran 
ahead of them, smiling as he saw me watching 
them, but turning back to cheer them on if he 
thought they were not fast enough. I could see 
as I watched him that he had caught the habit of 
command. He was going to be a good officer. It 
was a proud thought for me, and again I was re- 
joiced that it was such a son that I was able to 
offer to my country. 

They were kept busy at that training camp. 
Men were needed sore in France. Recruits were 
going over every day. What the retreat from 
Mons and the Battle of the Marne had left of that 
first heroic expeditionary force the first battle of 
Ypres had come close to wiping out. In the 
Ypres salient our men out there were hanging on 
like grim death. There was no time to spare at 
Bedford, where men were being made ready as 
quickly as might be to take their turn in the 
trenches. 

But there was a little time when John and I 
could talk. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 35 

^'Wliat do you need most, son!" I asked 
him. 

''Men!" he cried. "Men, Dad, men! They're 
coming in quickly. Oh, Britain has answered 
nobly to the call. But they're not coming in 
fast enough. We must have more men — more 
men!" 

I had thought, when I asked my question, of 
something John might be needing for himself, or 
for his men, mayhap. But when he answered me 
so I said nothing. I only began to think. I 
wanted to go myself. But I knew they would not 
have me — yet awhile, at any rate. And still I felt 
that I must do something. I could not rest idle 
while all around me men were giving themselves 
and all they had and were. 

Everywhere I heard the same cry that John had 
raised : 

**Men! Give us men!'* 

It came from Lord Kitchener. It came from 
the men in command in France and Belgium — 
that little strip of Belgium the Hun had not been 
able to conquer. It came from every broken, 
maimed man who came back home to Britain to 
be patched up that he might go out again. There 
were scores of thousands of men in Britain who 
needed only the last quick shove to send them 
across the line of enlistment. And after I had 
thought a while I hit upon a plan. 

"What stirs a man's fighting spirit quicker or 



36 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

better than the right sort of music!" I asked 
myself. " And what sort of music does it best 
of alll" 

There can be only one answer to that last ques- 
tion! And so I organized my recruiting band, 
that was to be famous all over Britain before so 
very long. I gathered fourteen of the best pipers 
and drummers I could find in all Scotland. I 
equipped them, gave them the Highland uniform, 
and sent them out, to travel over Britain skirling 
and drumming the wail of war through the 
length and breadth of the land. They were to go 
everywhere, carrying the shrieking of the pipes 
into the highways and the byways, and so they 
did. And I paid the bills. 

That was the first of many recruiting bands 
that toured Britain. Because it was the first, and 
because of the way the pipers skirled out the old 
hill melodies and songs of Scotland, enormous 
crowds followed my band. And it led them 
straight to the recruiting stations. There was a 
swing and a sway about those old tunes that the 
young fellows couldn't resist. 

The pipers would begin to skirl and the drums 
to beat in a square, maybe, or near the railway 
station. And every time the skirling of the pipes 
would bring the crowd. Then the pipers would 
march, when the crowd was big enough, and lead 
the way always to the recruiting place. And once 
they were there the young fellows who weren't 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE S7 

'■ ' quite ready to decide ' ' and the others who were 
just plain slackers, willing to let better men die 
for them, found it mighty hard to keep from going 
on the wee rest of the way that the pipers had left 
them to make alone ! 

It was wonderful work my band did, and when 
the returns came to me I felt like the Pied Piper ! 
Yes I did, indeed ! 

I did not travel with my band. That would 
have been a waste of effort. There was work for 
both of us to do, separately. I was booked for a 
tour of Britain, and everywhere I went I spoke, 
and urged the young men to enlist. I made as 
many speeches as I could, in every town and city 
that I visited, and I made special trips to many. 
I thought, and there were those who agreed 
with me, that I could, it might be, reach 
audiences another speaker, better trained than 
I, no doubt, in this sort of work, would not 
touch. 

So there was I, without official standing, going 
about, urging every man who could to don khaki. 
I talked Avherever and whenever I could get an 
audience together, and I began then the habit of 
making speeches in the theatres, after my per- 
formance, that I have not yet given up. I talked 
thus to the young men. 

**If you don't do your duty now," I told them, 
**you may live to be old men. But even if you 
do, you will regret it ! Yours will be a sorrowful 



38 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

old age. In the years to come, mayhap, there'll 
be a wee grandchild nestling on your knee that'll 
circle its little arms about your neck and look into 
your wrinkled face, and ask you : 

** 'How old are you, Grandpa? You're a very 
old man.' 

''How will you answer that bairn's question!" 
So I asked the young men. And then I an- 
swered for them: "I don't know how old I 
am, but I am so old that I can remember the great 
war." 

*'And then" — I told them, the young men who 
were wavering — "and then will come the ques- 
tion that you will always have to dread — when 
you have won through to the old age that may be 
yours in safety if you shirk now ! For the bairn 
wiU ask you, straightaway: 'Did you fight in the 
great war, Grandpa ? "What did you do ? ' 

"God help the man," I told them, "who cannot 
hand it down as a heritage to his children and 
his children's children that he fought in the great 
war!" 

I must have impressed many a brave lad who 
wanted only a bit of resolution to make him do his 
duty. They tell me that I and my band together 
influenced more than twelve thousand men to join 
the colors ; they give me credit for that many, in 
one way and another. I am proud of that. But 
I am prouder still of the way the boys who en- 
listed upon my urging feel. Never a one has up- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 39 

braided me ; never a one has told me he was sorry 
he had heard me and been led to go. 

It is far otherwise. The laddies who went be- 
cause of me called me their godfather, many of 
them ! Many 's the letter I have had from them ; 
many the one who has greeted me, as I was pass- 
ing through a hospital, or, long afterward, when 
I made my first tour in France, behind the front 
line trenches. Many letters, did I say? I have 
had hundreds — thousands! And not so much as 
a word of regret in any one of them. 

It was not only in Britain that I influenced 
enlistments. I preached the cause of the Empire 
in Canada, later. And here is a bit of verse that 
a Canadian sergeant sent to me. He dedicated it 
to me, indeed, and I am proud and glad that he 
did. 

''ONE OF THE BOYS WHO WENT" 

Say, here now, Mate, 
Don't you figure it's great 

To think when this war is all over; 
When we're through with this mud, 
And spilling o' blood, 

And we're shipped back again to old Dover. 
When they've paid us our tin, 
And we've blown the lot in, 

And our last penny is spent ; 
,We'll still have a thought — 
If it's all that we've got — 

I'm one of the boys who went! 



40 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

And perhaps later on 

^hen your wild days are gone, 

You'll be settling down for life. 
You've a girl in your eye 
Xou'll ask bye and bye 

To share up with you as your wife. 
When a few years have flown, 
And you've kids of your own, 

And you're feeling quite snug and content; 
It'll make your heart glad 
When they boast of their dad 

As one of the boys who went ! 



There was much work for me to do beside my 
share in the campaign to increase enlistments. 
Every day now the wards of the hospitals were 
filling up. Men suffering from frightful wounds 
came back to be mended and made as near whole 
as might be. And among them there was work 
for me, if ever the world held work for any man. 

I did not wait to begin my work in the hospitals. 
Every^vhere I went, where there were wounded 
men, I sang for those who were strong enough to 
be allowed to listen, and told them stories, and did 
all I could to cheer them up. It was heartrend- 
ing work, oftentimes. There were dour sights, 
dreadful sights in those hospitals. There were 
wounds the memory of which robbed me of sleep. 
There were men doomed to blindness for the rest 
of their lives. 

But over all there was a spirit that never lagged 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 41 

or faltered, and that strengthened me when I 
thought some sight was more than I could bear. 
It was the spirit of the British soldier, triumphant 
over suffering and cruel disfigurement, with his 
inevitable answer to any question as to how he 
was getting on. I never heard that answer varied 
when a man could speak at all. Always it was 
the same. Two words were enough. 
''AH right!" 



CHAPTER V 

AS I went about the country now, working 
hard to recruit men, to induce people to 
subscribe to the war loan, doing all the 
things in which I saw a chance to make myself 
useful, there was now an ever present thought. 
When would John go out? He must go soon. I 
knew that, so did his mother. We had learned 
that he would not be sent without a chance to bid 
us good-by. There we were better off than many 
a father and mother in the early days of the war. 
Many's the mother who learned first that her lad 
had gone to France when they told her he was 
dead. And many's the lassie who learned in the 
same way that her lover would never come home 
to be her husband. 

But by now Britain was settled down to war. It 
was as if war were the natural state of things, 
and everything was adjusted to war and those 
who must fight it. And many things were ordered 
better and more mercifully than they had been at 
first. 

It was in April that word came to us. We 
might see John again, his mother and I, if we 
hurried to Bedford. And so we did. For once 
I heeded no other call. It was a sad journey, but 

42 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 43 

I was proud and glad as well as sorry. John must 
do his share. There was no reason why my son 
should take fewer risks than another man's. That 
was something all Britain was learning in those 
days. We were one people. We must fight as 
one; one for all — all for one. 

John was sober when he met us. Sober, aye! 
But what a light there was in his eyes ! He was 
eager to be at the Huns. Tales of their doings 
were coming back to us now, faster and faster. 
They were tales to shock me. But they were tales, 
too, to whet the courage and sharpen the steel of 
every man who could fight and meant to go. 

It was John's turn to go. So it was he felt. 
And so it was his mother and I bid him farewell, 
there at Bedford. We did not know whether we 
would ever see him again, the bonnie laddie ! We 
had to bid him good-by, lest it be our last chance. 
For in Britain we knew, by then, what were the 
chances they took, those boys of ours who went 
out. 

''Good-by, son — good luck!" 

' ' Good-by, Dad. See you when I get leave ! ' ' 

That was all. We were not allowed to know 
more than that he was ordered to France. 
Whereabouts in the long trench line he would be 
sent we were not told. "Somewhere in France." 
That phrase, that had been dinned so often into 
our ears, had a meaning for us now. 

And now, indeed, our days and nights were 



44? A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

anxious ones. The war was in our house as it 
had never been before. I could think of nothing 
but my boy. And yet, all the time I had to go on. 
I had to carry on, as John was always bidding 
his men do. I had to appear daily before my 
audiences, and laugh and sing, that I might make 
them laugh, and so be better able to do their part. 

They had made me understand, my friends, by 
that time, that it was really right for me to carry 
on with my own work. I had not thought so at 
first. I had felt that it was wrong for me to be 
singing at such a time. But they showed me that 
I was influencing thousands to do their duty, in 
one way or another, and that I was helping to 
keep up the spirit of Britain, too. 

"Never forget the part that plays, Harry," my 
friends told me. "That's the thing the Hun can't 
understand. He thought the British would be 
poor fighters because they went into action mth 
a laugh. But that's the thing that makes them 
invincible. You 've your part to do in keeping up 
that spirit." 

So I went on but it was with a heavy heart, 
oftentimes. John's letters were not what made 
my heart heavy. There was good cheer in every- 
one of them. He told us as much as the censor's 
rules would let him of the front, and of conditions 
as he found them. They were still bad — cruelly 
bad. But there was no word of complaint from 
John. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 45 

The Germans still had the best of us in guns in 
those days, although we were beginning to catch 
up with them. And they knew more about making 
themselves comfortable in the trenches than did 
our boys. No wonder ! They spent years of plan- 
ning and making ready for this war. And it has 
not taken us so long, all things considered, to 
catch up with them. 

John's letters were cheery and they came regu- 
larly, too, for a time. But I suppose it was be- 
cause they left out so much, because there was so 
great a part of my boy's life that was hidden from 
me, that I found myself thinking more and more 
of John as a wee bairn and as a lad growing up. 

He was a real boy. He had the real boy 's spirit 
of fun and mischief. There was a story I had 
often told of him that came to my mind now. We 
were living in Glasgow. One drizzly day, Mrs. 
Lauder kept John in the house, and he spent the 
time standing at the parlor window looking down 
on the street, apparently innocently interested in 
the passing traffic. 

In Glasgow it is the custom for the coal dealers 
to go along the streets with their lorries, crying 
their wares, much after the manner of a vegetable 
peddler in America. If a housewife wants any 
coal, she goes to the window when she hears the 
hail of the coal man, and holds up a finger, or two 
fingers, according to the number of sacks of coal 
she wants. 



46 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

To Mrs. Lauder's surprise, and finally to her 
great vexation, coal men came tramping up our 
stairs every few minutes all afternoon, each one 
staggering under the weight of a hundredweight 
sack of coal. She had ordered no coal and she 
wanted no coal, but still the coal men came — a 
veritable pest of them. 

They kept coming, too, until she discovered that 
little John was the author of their grimy pil- 
grimages to our door. He was signalling every 
passing lorrie from the window in the Glasgow 
coal code ! 

I watched him from that window another day 
when he was quarreling with a number of play- 
mates in the street below. The quarrel finally 
ended in a fight. John was giving one lad a pretty 
good pegging, when the others decided that the 
battle was too much his way, and jumped on him. 

John promptly executed a strategic retreat. 
He retreated with considerable speed, too. I saw 
him running ; I heard the patter of his feet on our 
stairs, and a banging at our door. I opened it and 
admitted a flushed, disheveled little warrior, and 
I heard the other boys shouting up the stairs what 
they would do to him. 

By the time I got the door closed, and got back 
to our little parlor, John was standing at the 
window, giving a marvelous pantomime for the 
benefit of his enemies in the street. He was put- 
ting his small, clenched fist now to his nose, and 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 47 

now to his jaw, to indicate to the youngsters what 
he was going to do to them later on. 

Those, and a hundred other little incidents, 
were as fresh in my memory as if they had only 
occurred yesterday. His mother and I recalled 
them over and over again. From the day John 
was born, it seems to me the only things that 
really interested me were the things in which he 
was concerned. I used to tuck him in his crib at 
night. The affairs of his babyhood were far more 
important to me than my own personal affairs. 

I watched him grow and develop with enormous 
pride, and he took great pride in me. That to me 
was far sweeter than praise from crowned heads. 
Soon he was my constant companion. He was my 
business confidant. More — he was my most inti- 
mate friend. 

There were no secrets between us. I think that 
John and I talked of things that few fathers and 
sons have the courage to discuss. He never feared 
to ask my advice on any subject, and I never 
feared to give it to him. 

I wish you could have known my son as he was 
to me. I wish all fathers could know their sons 
as I knew John. He was the most brilliant con- 
versationalist I have ever known. He was my 
ideal musician. 

He took up music only as an accomplishment, 
however. He did not want to be a performer, 
although he had amazing natural talent in that 



48 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

direction. Music was bom in him. He could 
transpose a melody in any key. You could whistle 
an air for him, and he could turn it into a little 
opera at once. 

However, he was anxious to make for himself 
in some other line of endeavor, and while he was 
often my piano accompanist, he never had any 
intention of going on the stage. 

When he was fifteen years old, I was com- 
manded to appear before King Edward, who was 
a guest at Rufford Abbey, the seat of Lord and 
Lady Sayville, situated in a district called the 
Dukeries, and I took John as my accompanist. 

I gave my usual performance, and while I was 
making my changes, John played the piano. At 
the close. King Edward sent for me, and thanked 
me. It was a proud moment for me, but a prouder 
moment came when the King spoke of John's 
playing, and thanked him for his part in the enter- 
tainment. 

There were curious contradictions, it often 
seemed to me, in John. His uncle, Tom Vallance, 
was in his day, one of the very greatest football 
players in Scotland. But John never greatly 
liked the game. He thought it was too rough. He 
thought any game was a poor game in which 
players were likely to be hurt. And yet — he had 
been eager for the rough game of war! The 
roughest game of all ! 

Ah, but that was not a game to him! He was 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 49 

not one of those who went to war with a light 
heart, as they might have entered upon a football 
match. All honor to those who went into the war 
60 — they played a great part and a noble part! 
But there were more who went to war as my boy 
did — taking it upon themselves as a duty and a 
solemn obligation. They had no illusions. They 
did not love war. No ! John hated war, and the 
black ugly horrors of it. But there were things 
he hated more than he hated war. And one 
was a peace won through submission to in- 
justice. 

Have I told you how my boy looked? He was 
slender, but he was strong and wiry. He was 
about five feet five inches tall ; he topped his Dad 
by a handspan. And he was the neatest boy you 
might ever have hoped to see. Aye — but he did 
not inherit that from me ! Indeed, he used to re- 
proach me, oftentimes, for being careless about 
my clothes. My collar would be loose, perhaps, or 
my waistcoat would not fit just so. He 'd not like 
that, and he would tell me so ! 

When he did that I would tell him of times when 
he was a wee boy, and would come in from play 
with a dirty face; how his mother would order 
him to wash, and how he would painstakingly mop 
off just enough of his features to leave a dark ring 
abaft his cheeks, and above his eyes, and below 
his chin. 

**You wash your face, but never let on to your 



60 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

neck," I would tell him when he was a wee laddie. 

He had a habit then of parting and brushing 
about an inch of his hair, leaving the rest all 
topsy-turvy. My recollection of that boyhood 
habit served me as a defense in later years when 
he would call my attention to my own disordered 
hair. 

I linger long, and I linger lovingly over these 
small details, because they are part of my daily 
thoughts. Every day some little incident comes 
up to remind me of my boy. A battered old 
hamper, in which I carry my different character 
make-ups, stands in my dressing room. It was 
John's favorite seat. Every time I look at it I 
have a vision of a tiny wide-eyed boy perched on 
the lid, watching me make ready for the stage. 
A lump rises, unbidden, in my throat. 

In all his life, I never had to admonish my son 
once. Not once. He was the most considerate lad 
I have ever known. He was always thinking of 
others. He was always doing for others. 

It was with such thoughts as these that John's 
mother and I filled in the time between his letters. 
They came as if by a schedule. "We knew what 
post should bring one. And once or twice a letter 
was a post late and our hearts were in our throats 
with fear. And then came a day when there 
should have been a letter, and none came. The 
whole day passed. I tried to comfort John's 
mother! I tried to believe myself that it was no 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 51 

more than a mischance of the post. But it was 
not that. 

We could do nought but wait. Ah, but the folks 
at home in Britain know all too well those sinister 
breaks in the chains of letters from the front! 
Such a break may mean nothing or anything. 

For us, news came quickly. But it was not a 
letter from John that came to us. It was a tele- 
gram from the war office and it told us no more 
than that our boy was wounded and in hospital. 



CHAPTER VI 

WOUNDED and in hospital!'' 
That might have meant anything. And 
for a whole week that was all we knew. 
To hope for word more definite until — and unless 
— John himself could send us a message, appeared 
to be hopeless. Every effort we made ended in 
failure. And, indeed, at such a time, private in- 
quiries could not well be made. The messages 
that had to do with the war and with the business 
of the armies had to be dealt with first. 

But at last, after a week in which his mother 
and I almost went mad with anxiety, there came 
a note from our laddie himself. He told us not 
to fret — that all that ailed him was that his nose 
w^as split and his wrist bashed up a bit! His 
mother looked at me and I at her. It seemed bad 
enough to us ! But he made light of his wounds 
— aye, and he was right ! When I thought of men 
I'd seen in hospitals — men with wounds so fright- 
ful that they may not be told of — I rejoiced that 
John had fared so well. 

And I hoped, too, that his wounds would bring 
him home to us — to Blighty, as the Tommies were 

52 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 68 

beginning to call Britain. But his wounds were 
not serious enough for that and so soon as they 
were healed, he went back to the trenches. 

* * Don 't worry about me, ' ' he wrote to us. ' ' Lots 
of fellows out here have been wounded five and 
six times, and don't think anything of it. I'll 
be all right so long as I don't get knocked 
out." 

He didn't tell us then that it was the bursting 
of a shell that gave him his first wounded stripe. 
But he wrote to us regularly again, and there 
were scarcely any days in which a letter did not 
come either to me or to his mother. When one 
of those breaks did come it was doubly hard to 
bear now. 

For now we knew what it was to dread the sight 
of a telegraph messenger. Few homes in Britain 
there are that do not share that knowledge now. 
It is by telegraph, from the war office, that bad 
news comes first. And so, with the memory of 
that first telegram that we had had, matters were 
even worse, somehow, than they had been before. 
For me the days and nights dragged by as if they 
would never pass. 

There was more news in John's letters now. 
"We took some comfort from that. I remember 
one in which he told his mother how good a bed 
he had finally made for himself the night before. 
For some reason he was without quarters — either 
a billet or a dug-out. He had to skirmish around, 



54> A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

for he did not care to sleep simply in Flanders 
mud. But at last he found two handfuls of straw, 
and with them made his couch. 

''I got a good two hours' sleep," he wrote to 
his mother. ''And I was perfectly comfortable. 
I can tell you one thing, too, Mother. If I ever 
get home after this experience, there'll be one in 
the house who'll never grumble! This business 
puts the grumbling out of your head. This is 
where the men are. This is where every man 
ought to be. ' ' 

In another letter he told us that nine of his men 
had been killed. 

''We buried them last night," he wrote, "just 
as the sun went down. It was the first funeral I 
have ever attended. It was most impressive. We 
carried the boys to one huge grave. The padre 
said a prayer, and we lowered the boys into the 
ground, and we all sang a little hymn: 'Peace, 
Perfect Peace ! ' Then I called my men to atten- 
tion again, and we marched straight back into the 
trenches, each of us, I dare say, wondering who 
would be the next." 

John was promoted for the second time in 
Flanders, He was a captain, having got his step 
on the field of battle. Promotion came swiftly in 
those days to those who proved themselves worthy. 
And all of the few reports that came to us of 
John showed us that he was a good officer. His 
men liked him, and trusted him, and would follow 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 55 

him anywhere. And little more than that can be 
said of any officer. 

While Captain John Lauder was playing his 
part across the Channel, I was still trying to do 
what I could at home. My band still travelled up 
and down, the length and width of the United 
Kingdom, skirling and drumming and drawing 
men by the score to the recruiting office. 

There was no more talk now of a short war. 
We knew what we were in for now. 

But there was no thought or talk of anything 
save victory. Let the war go on as long as it 
must — it could end only in one way. We had been 
forced into the fight — but we were in, and we were 
in to stay. John, writing from France, was no 
more determined than those at home. 

It was not very long before there came again 
a break in John's letters. We were used to the 
days — far apart — that brought no word. Not 
until the second day and the third day passed 
without a word, did Mrs. Lauder and I confess 
our terrors and our anxiety to ourselves and one 
another. This time our suspense was compara- 
tively short-lived. Word came that John was in 
hospital again — at the Duke of Westminster's 
hospital at Le Toquet, in France. This time he 
was not wounded; he was suffering from dysen- 
tery, fever and — a nervous breakdown. That 
was what staggered his mother and me. A nerv- 
ous breakdown ! We could not reconcile the John 



56 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

we knew with the idea that the words conveyed to 
us. He had been high strung, to be sure, and sen- 
sitive. But never had he been the sort of boy of 
whom to expect a breakdown so severe as this 
must be if they had sent him to the hospital. 

We could only wait to hear from him, however. 
And it was several weeks before he was strong 
enough to be able to write to us. There was no 
hint of discouragement in what he wrote then. 
On the contrary, he kept on trying to reassure us, 
and if he ever grew downhearted, he made it his 
business to see that we did not suspect it. Here 
is one of his letters — like most of them it was not 
about himself. 

"I had a sad experience yesterday,'' he wrote 
to me. '^It was the first day I was able to be out 
of bed, and I went over to a piano in a cor- 
ner against the wall, sat down, and began 
playing very softly, more to myself than any- 
thing else. 

* ' One of the nurses came to me, and said a Cap- 
tain Webster, of the Gordon Highlanders, who 
lay on a bed in the same ward, wanted to speak 
to me. She said he had asked who was playing, 
and she had told him Captain Lauder — Harry 
Lauder's son. *0h,' he said, *I know Harry 
Lauder very well. Ask Captain Lauder to come 
here?' 

* ' This man had gone through ten operations in 
less than a week. I thought perhaps my playing 




" ' Carry On ! ' were the last words of my boy, Captain 

John Lauder, to his men, but he would mean 

them for me, too." 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 57 

had disturbed Mm, but when I went to his bed- 
side, he grasped my hand, pressed it with what 
little strength he had left, and thanked me. He 
asked me if I could play a hymn. He said he 
would like to hear 'Lead, Kindly Light.' 

"So I went back to the piano and played it as 
softly and as gently as I could. It was his last 
request. He died an hour later. I was very glad 
I was able to soothe his last moments a little. I 
am very glad now I learned the hymn at Sunday 
School as a boy." 

Soon after we received that letter there came 
what we could not but think great news. John 
was ordered home ! He was invalided, to be sure, 
and I warned his mother that she must be pre- 
pared for a shock when she saw him. But no mat- 
ter how ill he was, we would have our lad with us 
for a space. And for that much British fathers 
and mothers had learned to be grateful. 

I had warned John's mother, but it was I who 
was shocked when I saw him first on the day he 
came back to our wee hoose at Dunoon. His 
cheeks were sunken, his eyes very bright, as a 
man's are who has a fever. He was weak and 
thin, and there was no blood in his cheeks. It was 
a sight to wring one's heart to see the laddie so 
brought down — ^him who had looked so braw and 
strong the last time we had seen him. 

That had been when he was setting out for the 
j^ars, you ken ! And now he was back, sae thin and 



58 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

weak and pitiful as I had not seen him since he 
had been a bairn in his mother's arms. 

Aweel, it was for us, his mother and I, and all 
the folks at home, to mend him, and make him 
strong again. So he told us, for he had but one 
thing on his mind — to get back to his men. 

''They'll be needing me, out there," he said. 
''They're needing men. I must go back so soon 
as I can. Every man is needed there." 

"You'll be needing your strength back before 
you can be going back, son," I told him. "If you 
fash and fret it will take you but so much the 
longer to get back." 

He knew that. But he knew things I could not 
know, because I had not seen them. He had seen 
things that he saw over and over again when he 
tried to sleep. His nerves were shattered utterly. 
It grieved me sore not to spend all my time with 
him but he would not hear of it. He drove me 
back to my work. 

"You must work on. Dad, like every other 
Briton," he said. "Think of the part you're 
playing. Why you're more use than any of us 
out there — you're worth a brigade!" 

So I left him on the Clyde, and went on about 
my work. But I went back to Dunoon as often as 
I could, as I got a day or a night to make the 
journey. At first there was small change of prog- 
ress. John would come downstairs about the 
middle of the day, moving slowly and painfully. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 59 

And lie was listless ; there was no life in him ; no 
resiliency or spring. 

''How did you rest, son?" I would ask him. 

He always smiled when he answered. 

"Oh, fairly well," he'd tell me. "I fought 
three or four battles though, before I dropped off 
to sleep." 

He had come to the right place to be cured, 
though, and his mother was the nurse he needed. 
It was quiet in the hills of the Clyde, and there 
was rest and healing in the heather about Dunoon. 
Soon his sleep became better and less troubled by 
dreams. He could eat more, too, and they saw to 
it, at home, that he ate all they could stuff into 
him. 

So it was a surprisingly short time, considering 
how bad he had looked when he first came back 
to Dunoon, before he was in good health and 
spirits again. There was a bonnie, wee lassie 
who was to become Mrs. John Lauder ere so 
long — she helped our boy, too, to get back his 
strength. 

Soon he was ordered from home. For a time 
he had only light duties with the Home Reserve. 
Then he went to school. T laughed when he told 
me he had been ordered to school, but he didna 
crack a smile. 

"You needn't be laughing," he said. "It's a 
bombing school I'm going to now-a-days. If 
you're away from the front for a few weeks, you 



60 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

find everything changed when you get back. 
Bombing is going to be important." 

John did so well in the bombing school that he 
was made an instructor and assigned, for a while, 
to teach others. But he was impatient to be back 
with his own men, and they were clamoring for 
him. And so, on September 16, 1916, his mother 
and I bade him good-by again, and he went back 
to France and the men his heart was wrapped 
up in. 

''Yon's where the men are, Dad!" he said to 
me, just before he started. 



CHAPTER Vn 

JOHN'S mother, his sweetheart and I all saw 
him off at Glasgow. The fear was in all our 
hearts, and I think it must have been in all 
our eyes, as well — the fear that every father and 
mother and sweetheart in Britain shared with us 
in these days whenever they saw a boy off for 
France and the trenches. Was it for the last 
time? Were we seeing him now so strong and 
hale and hearty, only to have to go the rest of our 
lives with no more than a memory of him to keep 1 
Aweel, we could not be telling that ! We could 
only hope and pray! And we had learned again 
to pray, long since. I have wondered, often, and 
Mrs. Lauder has wondered with me, what the 
fathers and mothers of Britain would do in these 
black days without prayer to guide them and sus- 
tain them. So we could but stand there, keeping 
back our tears and our fears, and hoping for the 
best. One thing was sure; we might not let the 
laddie see how close we were to greeting. It was 
for us to be so brave as God would let us be. It 
was hard for him. He was no boy, you ken, going 
blindly and gayly to a great adventure; he had 
need of the finest courage and devotion a man 
could muster that day. 

61 



62 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

For he knew fully now what it was that he 
was going back to. He knew the hell the Huns 
had made of war, which had been bad enough, in 
all conscience, before they did their part to make 
it worse. And he was high strung. He could live 
over, and I make no doubt he did, in those days 
after he had his orders to go back, every grim and 
dreadful thing that was waiting for him out there. 
He had been through it all, and he was going 
back. He had come out of the valley of the 
shadow, and now he was to ride down into it 
again. 

And it was with a smile he left us! I shall 
never forget that. His thought was all for us 
whom he was leaving behind. His care was for 
us, lest we should worry too greatly and think 
too much of him. 

"I'll be all right," he told us. ''You're not to 
fret about me, any of you. A man does take his 
chances out there — but they're the chances every 
man must take these days, if he's a man at all. 
I'd rather be taking them than be safe at 
home." 

We did our best to match the laddie's spirit 
and be worthy of him. But it was cruelly hard. 
We had lost him and found him again, and now 
he was being taken from us for the second time. 
It was harder, much harder, to see him go this 
second time than it had been at first, and it had 
been hard enough then- and bad enough. But 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 63 

there was nothing else for it. So much we knew. 
It was a thing ordered and inevitable. 

And it was not many days before we had 
slipped back into the way things had been before 
John was invalided home. It is a strange thing 
about life, the way that one can become used to 
things. So it was with us. Strange things, ter- 
rible things, outrageous things, that, in time of 
peace, we would never have dared so much as to 
think possible, came to be the matters of every 
day for us. It was so with John. We came to 
think of it as natural that he should be away from 
us, and in peril of his life every minute of every 
hour. It was not easier for us. Indeed, it was 
harder than it had been before, just as it had 
been harder for us to say good-by the second 
time. But we thought less often of the strange- 
ness of it. We were really growing used to the 
war, and it was less the monstrous, strange thing 
than it had been in our daily lives. War had 
become our daily life and portion in Britain. 
All who were not slackers were doing their part 
— every one. Man and woman and child were in 
it, making sacrifices. Those happy days of peace 
lay far behind us, and we had lost our touch with 
them and our memory of them was growing dim. 
We were all in it. We had all to suffer alike, we 
were all in the same boat, we mothers and fathers 
and sweethearts of Britain. And so it was easier 



64? A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

for us not to think too much and too often of our 
own griefs and cares and anxieties. 

John's letters began to come again in a steady- 
stream. He was as careful as ever about writ- 
ing. There was scarcely a day that did not bring 
its letter to one of the three of us. And what 
bonnie, brave letters they were! They were as 
cheerful and as bright as his first letters had 
been. If John had bad hours and bad days out 
there he would not let us know it. He told us 
what news there was, and he was always cheerful 
and bright when he wrote. He let no hint of 
discouragement creep into anything he wrote to 
us. He thought of others first, always and all the 
time; of his men, and of us at home. He was 
quite cured and well, he told us, and going back 
had done him good instead of harm. He wrote 
to us that he felt as if he had come home. He 
felt, you ken, that it was there, in France and 
in the trenches, that men should feel at home in 
those days, and not safe in Britain by their ain 
firesides. 

It was not easy for me to be cheerful and com- 
fortable about him, though. I had my work to 
do. I tried to do it as w^ell as I could, for I knew 
that that would please him. My band still went 
up and down the country, getting recruits, and 
I was speaking, too, and urging men myself to 
go out and join the lads who were fighting and 
dying for them in France. They told me I was 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 65 

doing good work; that I was a great force in the 
war. And I did, indeed, get many a word and 
many a handshake from men who told me I had 
induced them to enlist. 

''I'm glad I heard you, Harry," man after 
man said to me. "You showed me what I should 
be doing and I've been easier in my mind ever 
since I put on the khaki!" 

I knew they'd never regret it, no matter what 
came to them. No man will, that 's done his duty. 
It's the slackers who couldn't or wouldn't see 
their duty men should feel sorry for! It's not 
the lads who gave everything and made the final 
sacrifice. 

It was hard for me to go on with my work of 
making folks laugh. It had been growing harder 
steadily ever since I had come home from Amer- 
ica and that long voyage of mine to Australia 
and had seen what war was and what it was doing 
to Britain. But I carried on, and did the best I 
could. 

That winter I was in the big revue at the 
Shaftesbury Theatre, in London, that was called 
** Three Cheers." It was one of the gay shows 
that London liked because it gave some relief 
from the war and made the Zeppelin raids that 
the Huns were beginning to make so often now a 
little easier to bear. And it was a great place for 
the men who were back from France. It was 
partly because of them that I could go on as I 



66 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

did. We owed them all we could give them. And 
when they came back from the mud and the grime 
and the dreariness of the trenches, they needed 
something to cheer them up — needed the sort of 
production we gave them. A man who has two 
days' leave in London does not want to see a 
serious play or a problem drama, as a rule. He 
wants something light, with lots of pretty girls 
and jolly tunes and people to make him laugh. 
And we gave him that. The house was full of 
officers and men, night after night. 

Soon word came from John that he was to have 
leave, just after Christmas, that would bring him 
home for the New Year's holidays. His mother 
went home to make things ready, for John was 
to be married when he got his leave. I had my 
plans all made. I meant to build a wee hoose for 
the two of them, near our own hoose at Dunoon, 
so that we might be all together, even though my 
laddie was in a home of his own. And I counted 
the hours and the days against the time when 
John would be home again. 

While we were playing at the Shaftesbury I 
lived at an hotel in Southampton Eow called the 
Bonnington. But it was lonely for me there. On 
New Year's Eve — it fell on a Sunday — Tom Val- 
lance, my brother-in-law, asked me to tea with 
him and his family in Clapham, where he lived. 
That is a pleasant place, a suburb of London on 
the southwest, and I was glad to go. And so I 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 67 

drove out with a friend of mine, in a taxicab, and 
was glad to get out of the crowded part of the city 
for a time. 

I did not feel right that day. Holiday times 
were bad, hard times for me then. We had always 
made so much of Christmas, and here was the 
third Christmas that our boy had been away. 
And so I was depressed. And then, there had 
been no word for me from John for a day or two. 
I was not worried, for I thought it likely that his 
mother or his sweetheart had heard, and had not 
time yet to let me know. But, whatever the rea- 
son, I was depressed and blue, and I could not 
enter into the festive spirit that folk were trying 
to keep alive despite the war. 

I must have been poor company during that 
ride to Clapham in the taxicab. We scarcely ex- 
changed a word, my friend and I. I did not feel 
like talking, and he respected my mood, and kept 
quiet himself. I felt, at last, that I ought to 
apologize to him. 

''I don't know what's the matter with me," I 
told him. "I simply don't want to talk. I feel 
sad and lonely. I wonder if my boy is all right T' 

* * Of course he is ! " my friend told me. ' ' Cheer 
up, Harry. This is a time when no news is good 
news. If anything were wrong with him they'd 
let you know." 

Well, I knew that, too. And I tried to cheer up, 
and feel better, so that I would not spoil the 



68 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

pleasure of the others at Tom Vallance's house. 
I tried to picture John as I thought he must be — 
well, and happy, and smiling the old, familiar 
boyish smile I knew so well. I had sent him a 
box of cigars only a few days before, and he 
would be handing it around among his fellow 
officers. I knew that ! But it was no use. I could 
think of John, but it was only with sorrow and 
longing. And I wondered if this same time in a 
year would see him still out there, in the trenches. 
Would this war ever end? And so the shadows 
still hung about me when we reached Tom's 
house. 

They made me very welcome, did Tom and all 
his family. They tried to cheer me, and Tom did 
all he could to make me feel better, and to reas- 
sure me. But I was still depressed when we left 
the house and began the drive back to London. 

"It's the holiday — I'm out of gear with that, 
I'm thinking," I told my friend. 

He was going to join two other friends, and, 
with them, to see the New Year in in an old 
fashioned way, and he wanted me to join them. 
But I did not feel up to it ; I was not in the mood 
for anything of the sort. 

**No, no, I'll go home and turn in," I told him. 
**I'm too dull to-night to be good company." 

He hoped, as we all did, that this New Year 
that was coming would bring victory and peace. 
Peace could not come without victory; we were 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 69 

all agreed on that. But we all hoped that the 
New Year would bring both — the new year of 
1917. And so I left him at the corner of South- 
hampton Row, and went back to my hotel alone. 
It was about midnight, a little before, I think, 
when I got in, and one of the porters had a mes- 
sage for me. 

"Sir Thomas Lipton rang you up," he said, 
''and wants you to speak with him when you 
come in." 

I rang him up at home directly. 

' ' Happy New Year, when it comes, Harry ! " he 
said. He spoke in the same bluff, hearty way he 
always did. He fairly shouted in my ear. ''When 
did you hear from the boy? Are you and Mrs. 
Lauder well?" 

"Aye, fine," I told him. And I told him my 
last news of John. 

"Splendid!" he said. "Well, it was just to 
talk to you a minute that I rang you up, Harry. 
Good-night — Happy New Year again. ' ' 

I went to bed then. But I did not go to sleep 
for a long time. It was New Year's, and I lay 
thinking of my boy, and wondering what this 
year would bring him. It was early in the morn- 
ing before I slept. And it seemed to me that I 
had scarce been asleep at all when there came a 
pounding at the door, loud enough to rouse the 
heaviest sleeper there ever was. 

My heart almost stopped. There must be 



70 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

something serious indeed for them to be rousing 
me so early. I rushed to the door, and there was 
a porter, holding out a telegram. I took it and 
tore it open. And I knew why I had felt as I had 
the day before. I shall never forget what I read : 

''Captain John Lauder killed in action, Decem- 
ber 28. Official. War Office." 

It had gone to Mrs. Lauder at Dunoon first, 
and she had sent it on to me. That was all it 
said. I knew nothing of how my boy had died, 
or where — save that it was for his country. 

But later I learned that when Sir Thomas 
Lipton had rung me up he had intended to con- 
dole with me. He had heard on Saturday of my 
boy's death. But when he spoke to me, and 
understood at once, from the tone of my voice, 
that I did not know, he had not been able to go 
on. His heart was too tender to make it possible 
for him to be the one to give me that blow — the 
heaviest that ever befell me. 



CHAPTEB VIII 

IT was on Monday morning, January the first, 
1917, that I learned of my boy's death. And 
he had been killed the Thursday before ! He 
had been dead four days before I knew it! And 
yet — I had known. Let no one ever tell me again 
that there is nothing in presentiment. Why else 
had I been so sad and uneasy in my mind? Why 
else, all through that Sunday, had it been so im- 
possible for me to take comfort in what was said 
to cheer me? Some warning had come to me, 
some sense that all was not well. 

Eealization came to me slowly. I sat and 
stared at that slip of paper, that had come to me 
like the breath of doom. Dead I Dead these four 
days! I was never to see the light of his eyes 
again. I was never to hear that laugh of his. I 
had looked on my boy for the last time. Could it 
be true f Ah, I knew it was ! And it was for this 
moment that I had been waiting, that we had all 
been waiting, ever since we had sent John away 
to fight for his country and do his part. I think 
we had all felt that it must come. We had all 
known that it was too much to hope that he should 
be one of those to be spared. 

7J 



72 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

The black despair that had been hovering over 
me for hours closed down now and enveloped all 
my senses. Everything was unreal. For a time 
I was quite numb. But then, as I began to realize 
and to visualize what it was to mean in my life 
that my boy was dead there came a great pain. 
The iron of realization slowly seared every word 
of that curt telegram upon my heart. I said it 
to myself, over and over again. And I whispered 
to myself, as my thoughts took form, over and 
over, the one terrible word: "Dead!" 

I felt that for me everything had come to an 
end with the reading of that dire message. It 
seemed to me that for me the board of life was 
black and blank. For me there was no past and 
there could be no future. Everything had been 
swept away, erased, by one sweep of the hand 
of a cruel fate. Oh, there was a past, though! 
And it was in that past that I began to delve. It 
was made up of every memory I had of my boy. 
I fell at once to remembering him. I clutched at 
every memory, as if I must grasp them and make 
sure of them, lest they be taken from me as well 
as the hope of seeing him again that the telegram 
had forever snatched away. 

I would have been destitute ir.deed then. It 
was as if I must iix in my mind the way he had 
been wont to look, and recall to my ears every 
tone of his voice, every trick of his speech. There 
was something left of him that I must keep, I 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 73 

knew, even then, at all costs, if I was to be able 
to bear his loss at all. 

There was a vision of him before my eyes. My 
bonnie Highland laddie, brave and strong in his 
kilt and the uniform of his country, going out to 
his death with a smile on his face. And there was 
another vision that came up now, unbidden. It 
was a vision of him lying stark and cold upon the 
battlefield, the mud on his uniform. And when I 
saw that vision I was like a man gone mad 
and possessed of devils who had stolen away his 
faculties. I cursed war as I saw that vision, and 
the men who caused war. And when I thought of 
the Germans who had killed my boy a terrible and 
savage hatred swept me, and I longed to go out 
there and kill with my bare hands until I had 
avenged him or they had killed me too. 

But then I was a little softened. I thought of 
his mother back in our wee hoose at Dunoon. 
And the thought of her, bereft even as I was, sor- 
rowing, even as I was, and lost in her frightful 
loneliness, was pitiful, so that I had but the one 
desire and wish — to go to her, and join my tears 
with hers, that we who were left alone to bear our 
grief might bear it together and give one to the 
other such comfort as there might be in life for 
us. And so I fell upon my knees and prayed, 
there in my lonely room in the hotel. I prayed to 
God that he might give us both, John's mother 
and myself, strength to bear the blow that had 



74 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

been dealt us and to endure the sacrifice that He 
and our country had demanded of us. 

My friends came to me. They came rushing to 
me. Never did man have better friends, and 
kindlier friends than mine proved themselves to 
me on that day of sorrow. They did all that good 
men and women could do. But there was no help 
for me in the ministration of friends. I was 
beyond the power of human words to comfort or 
solace. I was glad of their kindness, and the 
memory of it now is a precious one, and one I 
would not be without. But at such a time I could 
not gain from them what they were eager to give 
me. I could only bow my head and pray for 
strength. 

That night, that New Yearns night that I shall 
never forget, no matter how long God may let me 
live, I went north. I took train from London to 
Glasgow, and the next day I came to our wee 
hoose — a sad, lonely wee hoose it had become 
now! — on the Clyde at Dunoon, and was with 
John's mother. It was the place for me. It was 
there that I wanted to be, and it was with her, 
who must hereafter be all the world to me. And 
I was eager to be with her, too, who had given 
John to me. Sore as my grief was, stricken as I 
was, I could comfort her as no one else could hope 
to do, and she could do as much for me. We be- 
longed together. 

I can scarce remember, even for myself, what 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 75 

happened there at Dunoon. I cannot tell you 
what I said or what I did, or what words and what 
thoughts passed between John's mother and 
myself. But there are some things that I do know 
and that I will tell you. 

Almighty God, to whom we prayed, was kind, 
and He was pitiful and merciful. For presently 
He brought us both a sort of sad composure. 
Presently He assuaged our grief a little, and gave 
us the strength that we must have to meet the 
needs of life and the thought of going on in a 
world that was darkened by the loss of the boy in 
whom all our thoughts and all our hopes had been 
centred. I thanked God then, and I thank God 
now, that I have never denied Him nor taken His 
name in vain. 

For God gave me great thoughts about my boy 
and about his death. Slowly, gradually, He made 
me to see things in their true light, and He took 
away the sharp agony of my first grief and sor- 
row, and gave me a sort of peace. 

John died in the most glorious cause, and he 
died the most glorious death, it may be given to 
a man to die. He died for humanity. He died for 
liberty, and that this world in which life must go 
on, no matter how many die, may be a better 
world to live in. He died in a struggle against 
the blackest force and the direst threat that has 
appeared against liberty and humanity within the 
memory of man. And were he alive now, and 



76 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

were he called again to-day to go out for the same 
cause, knowing that he must meet death — as he 
did meet it — he would go as smilingly and as will- 
ingly as he went then. He would go as a British 
soldier and a British gentleman, to fight and die 
for his King and his country. And I would bid 
him go. 

I have lived through much since his death. 
They have not let me take a rifle or a sword and 
go into the trenches to avenge him. . . . But 
of that I shall tell you later. 

Ah, it was not at once that I felt so! In my 
heart, in those early days of grief and sorrow, 
there was rebellion, often and often. There were 
moments when in my anguish I cried out, aloud : 
*'Whyl Why? Why did they have to take John, 
my boy — ^my only child?" 

But God came to me, and slowly His peace 
entered my soul. And He made me see, as in a 
vision, that some things that I had said and that 
I had believed, were not so. He made me know, 
and I learned, straight from Him, that our boy 
had not been taken from us forever as I had paid 
to myself so often since that telegram had 
come. 

He is gone from this life, but he is waiting for 
us beyond this life. He is waiting beyond this 
life and this world of wicked war and wanton 
cruelty and slaughter. And we shall come, some 
day, his mother and I, to the place where he is 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 77 

waiting for us, and we shall all be as happy there 
as we were on this earth in the happy days before 
the war. 

My eyes will rest again upon his face. I will 
hear his fresh young voice again as he sees me 
and cries out his greeting. I know what he will 
say. He will spy me, and his voice will ring out 
as it used to do. "Hello, Dad!" he will call, as 
he sees me. And I will feel the grip of his young, 
strong arms about me, just as in the happy days 
before that day that is of all the days of my life 
the most terrible and the most hateful in my 
memory — the day when they told me that he had 
been killed. 

That is my belief. That is the comfort that God 
has given me in my grief and my sorrow. There 
is a God. Ah, yes, there is a God! Times there 
are, I know, when some of those who look upon 
the horrid slaughter of this war, that is going on, 
hour by hour, feel that their faith is being shaken 
by doubts. They think of the sacrifices, of the 
blood that is being poured out, of the sufferings 
of women and children. And they see the cause 
that is wrong and foul prospering, for a little 
time, and they cannot understand. 

"If there is a God," they whisper to them- 
selves, "why does he permit a thing so wicked to 
go on!" 

But there is a God — there is ! I have seen the 
stark horror of war. I know, as none can know 



78 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

until he has seen it at close quarters, what a thing 
war is as it is fought to-day. And I believe as I 
do believe, and as I shall believe until the end, 
because I know God's comfort and His grace, I 
know that my boy is surely waiting for me. In 
America, now, there are mothers and fathers by 
the scores of thousands who have bidden their 
sons good-by; who water their letters from 
France with their tears — who turn white at the 
sight of a telegram and tremble at the sudden 
clamor of a telephone. Ah, I know — I know! I 
suffered as they are suffering! And I have this 
to tell them and to beg them. They must believe 
as I believe — then shall they find the peace and 
the comfort that I have found. 

So it was that there, on the Clyde, John's 
mother and I came out of the blackness of our 
first grief. We began to be able to talk to one 
another. And every day we talked of John. We 
have never ceased to do that, his mother and I. 
We never shall. We may not have him with us 
bodily, but his spirit is never absent. And each 
day we remember some new thing about him that 
one of us can call to the other's mind. And it is 
as if, when we do that, we bring back some part 
of him out of the void. 

Little, trifling memories of when he was a baby, 
and when he was a boy, growing up ! And other 
memories, of later days. Often and often it was 
the days that were furthest away that we remem- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 79 

bered best of all, and things connected with those 
days. 

But I had small wish to see others. John's 
mother was enough for me. She and the peace 
that was coming to me on the Clyde. I could not 
bear to think of London. I had no plans to make. 
All that was over. All that part of my life, I 
thought, had ended with the news of my boy's 
death. I wanted no more than to stay at home 
on the Clyde and think of him. My wife and I 
did not even talk about the future. And no thing 
was further from all my thoughts than that I 
should ever step upon a stage again. 

What ! Go out before an audience and seek to 
make it laugh? Sing my songs when my heart 
was broken! I did not decide not to do it. I did 
not so much as think of it as a thing I had to 
decide about. 



CHAPTER IX 

A ND then one thing and another brought the 
r\ thought into my mind, so that I had to face 
it and tell people how I felt about it. There 
were neighbors, wanting to know when I would 
be about my work again. That it was that first 
made me understand that others did not feel as 
I was feeling. 

''They're thinking I'll be going back to work 
again," I told John's mother. "I canna'!" 

She felt as I did. We could not see, either one 
of us, in our grief, how anyone could think that 
I could begin again where I had left off. 

"I canna'! I will not try!" I told her, again 
and again. "How can I tak up again with tiiat 
old mummery? How can I laugh when my heart 
is breaking, and make others smile when the tears 
are in my eyes!" 

And she thought as I did, that I could not, and 
that no one should be asking me. The war had 
taken much of what I had earned, in one way or 
another. I was not so rich as I had been, but 
there was enough. There was no need for me to 
go back to work, so far as our living was con- 
cerned. And so it seemed to be settled between 
us. Planning we left for the future. It was no 

80 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 81 

time for us to be making plans. It mattered little 
enough to us what might be in store for us. We 
could take things as they might come. 

So we bided quiet in our home, and talked of 
John. And from every part of the earth and 
from people in all walks and conditions of life 
there began to pour in upon us letters and tele- 
grams of sympathy and sorrow. I think there 
were four thousand kindly folk who remembered 
us in our sorrow, and let us know that they could 
think of us in spite of all the other care and 
trouble that filled the world in those days. Many 
celebrated names were signed to those letters and 
telegrams, and there were many, too, from simple 
folk whose very names I did not know, who told 
me that I had given them cheer and courage 
from the stage, and so they felt that they 
were friends of mine, and must let me know that 
they were sorry for the blow that had be- 
fallen me. 

Then it came out that I meant to leave the stage. 
They sent word from London, at last, to ask when 
they might look for me to be back at the Shaftes- 
bury Theatre. And when they found what it was 
in my mind to do all my friends began to plead 
with me and argue with me. They said it was 
my duty to myself to go back. 

"You're too young a man to retire, Harry," 
they said. " What would you do ? How could you 
pass away your time if you had no work to do? 



82 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

Men who retire at your age are always sorry. 
They wither away and die of dry rot." 

"There'll be plenty for me to be doing," I told 
them. ''I'U not be idle." 

But still they argued. I was not greatly moved. 
They were thinking of me, and their arguments 
appealed to my selfish interests and needs, and 
just then I was not thinking very much about 
myself. 

And then another sort of argument came to me. 
People wrote to me, men and women, who, like 
me, had lost their sons. Their letters brought the 
tears to my eyes anew. They were tender letters, 
and beautiful letters, most of them, and letters to 
make proud and glad, as well as sad, the heart of 
the man to whom they were written. I will not 
copy those letters down here, for they were writ- 
ten for my eyes, and for no others. But I can 
tell you the message that they all bore. 

''Don't desert us now, Harry!" It was so that 
they put it, one after another, in those letters. 
' ' Ah, Harry — there is so much woe and grief and 
pain in the world that you, who can, must do all 
that is in your power to make them easier to 
bear ! There are few forces enough in the world 
to-day to make us happy, even for a little space. 
Come back to us, Harry — make us laugh again ! ' ' 

It was when those letters came that, for the 
first time, I saw that I had others to consider 
beside myself, and that it was not only my own 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 83 

wishes that I might take into account. I talked to 
my wife, and I told her of those letters, and there 
were tears in both our eyes as we thought about 
those folks who knew the sorrow that was in our 
hearts. 

''You must think about them, Harry," she 
said. 

And so I did think about them. And then I 
began to find that there were others still about 
whom I must think. There were three hundred 
people in the cast of "Three Cheers," at the 
Shaftesbury Theatre, in London. And I began to 
hear now that unless I went back the show would 
be closed, and all of them would be out of work. 
At that season of the year, in the theatrical 
world, it would be hard for them to find other 
engagements, and they were not, most of them, 
like me, able to live without the salaries from the 
show. They wrote to me, many of them, and 
begged me to come back. And I knew that it was 
a desperate time for anyone to be without employ- 
ment. I had to think about those poor souls. And 
I could not bear the thought that I might be the 
means, however innocent, of bringing hardship 
and suffering upon others. It might not be my 
fault, and yet it would lie always upon my con- 
science. 

Yet, even with all such thoughts and prayers to 
move me, I did not see how I could yield to them 
and go back. Even after I had come to the point 



84. A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

of being willing to go back if I could, I did not 
think I could go through with it. I was afraid I 
would break down if I tried to play my part. I 
talked to Tom Vallance, my brother-in-law. 

'at's very well to talk, Tom," I said. '' But 
they'd ring the curtain down on me ! I can never 
doit!" 

**You must!" he said. "Harry, you must go 
back! It's your duty! What would the boy be 
saying and having you do? Don't you remember, 
Harry? John's last words to his men were — 
'Carry On!' That's what it is they're asking you 
to do, too, Harry, and it's what John would have 
wanted. It would be his wish." 

And I knew that he was right. Tom had found 
the one argument that could really move me and 
make me see my duty as the others did. So I gave 
in. I wired to the management that I would re- 
join the cast of ** Three Cheers," and I took the 
train to London. And as I rode in the train it 
seemed to me that the roar of the wheels made a 
refrain, and I could hear them pounding out those 
two words, in my boy's voice: ** Carry On!" 

But how hard it was to face the thought of going 
before an audience again ! And especially in such 
circumstances. There were to be gayety and life 
and light and sparkle all about me. There were 
to be lassies, in their gay dresses, and the mer- 
riest music in London. And my part was to be 
merry, too, and to make the great audience laugh 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 85 

that I would see beyond the footlights. And I 
thought of the Merryman in The Yeomen of the 
Guard, and that I must be a little like him, though 
my cause for grief was different. 

But I had given my word, and though I longed, 
again and again, as I rode toward London, and 
as the time drew near for my performance, to 
back out, there was no way that I could do so. 
And Tom Vallance did his best^to cheer me and 
hearten me, and relieve my nervousness. I have 
never been so nervous before. Not since I made 
my first appearance before an audience have I 
been so near to stage fright. 

I would not see anyone that night, when I 
reached the theatre. I stayed in my dressing- 
room, and Tom Vallance stayed with me, and kept 
everyone who tried to speak with me away. There 
were good folk, and kindly folk, friends of mine 
in the company, who wanted to shake my hand 
and tell me how they felt for me, but he knew that 
it was better for them not to see me yet, and he 
was my bodyguard. 

''It's no use, Tom," I said to him, again and 
again, after I was dressed and in my make up. 
I was cold first, and then hot. And I trembled 
in every limb. ''They'll have to ring the curtain 
down on me." 

"You'll be all right, Harry," he said. "So 
soon as you're out there! Remember, they're all 
your friends ! ' ' 



86 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

But he could not comfort me. I felt sure that it 
was a foolish thing for me to try to do; that I 
could not go through with it. And I was sorry, 
for the thousandth time, that I had let them per- 
suade me to make the effort. 

A call boy came at last to warn me that it was 
nearly time for my first entrance. I went with 
Tom into the wings, and stood there, waiting. I 
was pale under my make up, and I was shaking 
and trembling like a baby. And even then I 
wanted to cry off. But I remembered my boy, 
and those last words of his — ' ' Carry On ! " I must 
not fail him without at least trying to do what 
he would have wanted me to do ! 

My entrance was with a lilting little song called 
' ' I Love My Jean. ' ' And I knew that in a moment 
my cue would be given, and I would hear the 
music of that song beginning. I was as cold as 
if I had been in an icy street, although it was hot. 
I thought of the two thousand people who were 
waiting for me beyond the footlights — the house 
was a big one, and it was packed full that 
night. 

"I can't, Tom — I can't!" I cried. 

But he only smiled, and gave me a little push 
as my cue came and the music began. I could 
scarcely hear it ; it was like music a great distance 
off, coming very faintly to my ears. And I said 
a prayer, inside. I asked God to be good to me 
once more, and to give me strength, and to bear 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 87 

me through this ordeal that I was facing, as he 
had borne me through before. And then I had to 
step into the full glare of the great lights. 

I felt as if I were in a dream. The people were 
unreal — stretching away from me in long, slop- 
ing rows, their white faces staring at me from the 
darkness beyond the great lights. And there was 
a little ripple that ran through them as I went 
out, as if a great many people, all at the same 
moment, had caught their breath. 

I stood and faced them, and the music sounded 
in my ears. For just a moment they were still. 
And then they were shaken by a mighty roar. 
They cheered and cheered and cheered. They 
stood up and waved to me. I could hear their 
voices rising, and cries coming to me, with my 
own name among them. 

' ' Bravo, Harry ! " I heard them call. And then 
there were more cheers, and a great clapping of 
hands. And I have been told that everywhere in 
that great audience men and women were crying, 
and that the tears were rolling down their cheeks 
without ever an attempt by any of them to hide 
them or to check them. It was the most wonderful 
and the most beautiful demonstration I have ever 
seen, in all the years that I have been upon the 
stage. Many and many a time audiences have 
been good to me. They have clapped me and they 
have cheered me, but never has an audience 
treated me as that one did. I had to use every 



88 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

bit of strength and courage that I had to keep 
from breaking down. 

To this day I do not know how I got through 
with that first song that night. I do not even 
know whether I really sang it. But I think that, 
somehow, blindly, without knowing what I was 
doing, I did get through ; I did sing it to the end. 
Habit, the way that I was used to it, I suppose, 
helped me to carry on. And when I left the stage 
the whole company, it seemed to me, was waiting 
for me. They were crying and laughing, hys- 
terically, and they crowded around me, and kissed 
me, and hugged me, and wrung my hand. 

It seemed that the worst of my ordeal was over. 
But in the last act I had to face another test. 

There was a song for me in that last act that 
was the great song in London that season. I have 
sung it all over America since then — "The Lad- 
dies Who Fought and Won." It has been suc- 
cessful everywhere — that song has been one of the 
most popular I have ever sung. But it was a cruel 
song for me to sing that night ! 

It was the climax of the last act and of the 
whole piece. In "Three Cheers" soldiers were 
brought on each night to be on the stage behind 
me when I sang that song. They were from the 
battalion of the Scots Guards in London, and they 
were real soldiers, in uniform. Different men 
were used each night, and the money that was 
paid to the Tommies for their work went into the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 89 

company fund of the men who appeared, and 
helped to provide them with comforts and luxu- 
ries. And the war office was glad of the arrange- 
ment, too, for it was a great song to stimulate 
recruiting. 

There were two lines in the refrain that I shall 
never forget. And it was when I came to those 
two lines that night that I did, indeed, break 
down. Here they are : 

"When we all gather round the old fireside 
And the fond mother kisses her son — " 

Were they not cruel words for me to have to 
sing, who knew that his mother could never kiss 
my son again? They brought it all back to me! 
My son was gone — he would never come back with 
the laddies who had fought and won! 

For a moment I could not go on. I was chok- 
ing. The tears were in my eyes, and my throat 
was choked with sobs. But the music went on, 
and the chorus took up the song, and between the 
singers and the orchestra they covered the break 
my emotion had made. And in a little space I was 
able to go on with the next verse, and to carry on 
until my part in the show was done for the night. 
But I still wondered how it was that they had not 
had to ring down the curtain upon me, and that 
Tom Vallance and the others had been right and 
I the one that was wrong ! 



90 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

Ah, weel, I learned that night what many and 
many another Briton had learned, both at home 
and in France — that you can never know what 
you can do until you have to find it out! Yon 
was the hardest task ever I had to undertake, but 
for my boy's sake, and because they had made me 
understand that it was what he would have 
wanted me to do, I got through with it. 

They rose to me again, and cheered and cheered, 
after I had finished singing "The Laddies Who 
Fought and Won." And there were those who 
called to me for a speech, but so much I had to 
deny them, good though they had been to me, and 
much as I loved them for the way they had re- 
ceived me. I had no words that night to thank 
them, and I could not have spoken from that stage 
had my life depended upon it. I could only get 
through, after my poor fashion, with my part in 
the show. 

But the next night I did pull myself together, 
and I was able to say a few words to the audience 
— thanks that were simply and badly put, it may 
be, but that came from the bottom of my over- 
flowing heart. 



CHAPTER X 

I HAD not believed it possible. But there I 
was, not only back at work, back upon the 
stage to which I thought I had said good-by 
forever, but successful as I had thought I could 
never be again. And so I decided that I would 
remain until the engagement of ''Three Cheers" 
closed. But my mind was made up to retire after 
that engagement. I felt that I had done all I 
could, and that it was time for me to retire, and 
to cease trying to make others laugh. There was 
no laughter in my heart, and often and often, that 
season, as I cracked my merriest jokes, my heart 
was sore and heavy and the tears were in my 
eyes. 

But slowly a new sort of courage came to me. 
I was able to meet my friends again, and to talk 
to them, of myself and of my boy. I met brother 
officers of his, and I heard tales of him that gave 
me a new and even greater pride in him than I 
had known before. And my friends begged me to 
carry on in every way. 

"You were doing a great work and a good 
work, Harry," they said. "The boy would want 
you to carry on. Do not drop all the good you 
were doing." 

91 



92 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

I knew that they were right. To sit alone and 
give way to my grief was a selfish thing to do at 
such a time. If there was work for me to do, still, 
it was my duty to try to do it, no matter how 
greatly I would have preferred to rest quiet. At 
this time there was great need of making the peo- 
ple of Britain understand the need of food con- 
servation, and so I began to go about London, 
making speeches on that subject wherever people 
could be gathered together to listen to me. They 
told me I did some good. And at least, I tried. 

And before long I was glad, indeed, that I had 
listened to the counsel of my friends and had not 
given way to my selfish desire to nurse my grief 
in solitude and silence. For I realized that there 
was a real work for me to do. Those folk who 
had begged me to do my part in lightening the 
gloom of Britain had been right. There was so 
much sorrow and grief in the land that it was the 
duty of all who could dispel it, if even for a little 
space, to do what they could. I remembered that 
poem of Ella Wheeler Wilcox — "Laugh and the 
World Laughs With You!" And so I tried to 
laugh, and to make the part of the world that I 
chanced to be in laugh with me. For I knew there 
was weeping and sorrowing enough. 

And all the time I felt that the spirit of my boy 
was with me, and that he knew what I was doing, 
and why, and was glad, and that he understood 
that if I laughed it was not because I thought less 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 93 

often of him, or missed him less keenly and bit- 
terly than I had done from the very beginning. 

There was much praise for my work from high 
officials, and it made me proud and glad to know 
that the men who were at the head of Britain's 
effort in the war thought I was being of use. One 
time I spoke with Mr. Balfour, the former Prime 
Minister, at Drury Lane Theatre to one of the 
greatest war gatherings that was ever held in 
London. 

And always and everywhere there were the 
hospitals, full of the laddies who had been brought 
home from France. Ah, but they were pitiful, 
those laddies who had fought, and won, and been 
brought back to be nursed back to the life they 
had been so bravely willing to lay down for their 
country! But it was hard to look at them, and 
know how they were suffering, and to go through 
with the task I had set myself of cheering them 
and comforting them in my own way! There 
were times when it was all I could do to get 
through with my program. 

They never complained. They were always 
bright and cheerful, no matter how terrible their 
wounds might be; no matter what sacrifices they 
had made of eyes and limbs. There were men in 
those hospitals who knew that they were going 
out no more than half the men they had been. 
And yet they were as brave and careless of them- 
selves as if their wounds had been but trifles. I 



94 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

think the greatest exhibition of courage and nerve 
the world has ever seen was to be found in those 
hospitals in London and, indeed, all over Britain, 
where those wonderful lads kept up their spirits 
always, though they knew they could never again 
be sound in body. 

Many and many of them there were who knew 
that they could never walk again the shady lanes 
of their hameland or the little streets of their 
hame towns! Many and many more there were 
who knew that, even after the bandages were 
taken from about their eyes, they would never gaze 
again upon the trees and the grass and the flowers 
growing upon their native hillsides; that never 
again could they look upon the faces of their 
loved ones. They knew that everlasting darkness 
was their portion upon this earth. 

But one and all they talked and laughed and 
sang ! And it was there among the hospitals, that 
I came to find true courage and good cheer. It 
was not there that I found talk of discouragement, 
and longing for any early peace, even though the 
final victory that could alone bring a real peace 
and a worthy peace had not been won. No — not 
in the hospitals could I find and hear such talk as 
that ! For that I had to listen to those who had 
not gone — who had not had the courage and the 
nerve to offer all they had and all they were and 
go through that hell of hells that is modern war ! 

I saw other hospitals besides the ones in Lon- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 95 

don. After a time, when I was very tired, and 
far from well, I went to Scotland for a space to 
build myself up and get some rest. And in the 
far north I went fishing on the River Dee, which 
runs through the Durrie estate. And while I 
was there the Laird heard of it. And he sent 
word to tell me of a tiny hospital hard by where 
a guid lady named Mrs. Baird was helping to 
nurse disabled men back to health and strength. 
He asked me would I no call upon the men and 
try to give them a little cheer. And I was glad 
to hear of the chance to help. 

I laid down my rod forthwith, for here was bet- 
ter work than fishing — and in my ain country. 
They told me the way that I should go, and that 
this Mrs. Baird had turned a little school house 
into a convalescent home, and was doing a fine 
and wonderful work for the laddies she had taken 
in. So I set out to find it, and I walked along a 
country road to come to it. 

Soon I saw a man, strong and hale, as it seemed, 
pushing a wheel chair along the road toward me. 
And in the chair sat a man, and I could see at' 
once that he had lost the use of his legs — that he 
was paralyzed from the waist down. It was the 
way he called to him who was pushing him that 
made me tak notice. 

"Go to the right, mon!" he would call. Or, a 
moment later, "To the left now." 

And then they came near to the disaster. The 



96 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

one who was pushing was heading straight for 
the side of the road, and the one in the chair bel- 
lowed out to him: 

* ' Whoa there ! " he called. * ' Mon — ^ye 're taking 
me into the ditch ! Where would ye be going with 
me, anyway?" 

And then I understood. The man who was 
pushing was blind! They had but the one pair 
of eyes and the one pair of legs between the two 
of them, and it was so that they contrived to go 
out together without taking help from anyone 
else ! And they were both as cheerful as wee lad- 
dies out for a lark. It was great sport for them. 
And it was they who gave me my directions to get 
to Mrs. Baird's. 

They disputed a little about the way. The 
blind man, puir laddie, thought he knew. And he 
did not — not quite. But he corrected the man who 
could see but could not walk. 

^'It's the wrong road you're giving the gentle- 
man," he said. "It's the second turn he should 
be taking, not the first. ' ' 

And the other would not argue with him. It 
was a kindly thing, the way he kept quiet, and 
did but wink at me, that I might know the truth. 
He trusted me to understand and to know why he 
was acting as he was, and I blessed him in my 
heart for his thoughtfulness. And so I thanked 
them, and passed on, and reached Mrs. Baird's, 
and found a royal welcome there, and when they 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 97 

asked me if I would sing for the soldiers, and I 
said it was for that that I had come, there were 
tears in Mrs. Baird's eyes. And so I gave a wee 
concert there, and sang my songs, and did my best 
to cheer up those boys. 

Ah, my puir, brave Scotland — my bonnie little 
Scotland ! 

No part of all the United Kingdom, and, for 
that matter, no part of the world, has played a 
greater part, in proportion to its size and its 
ability, than has Scotland in this war for human- 
ity against the black force that has attacked it. 
Nearly a million men has Scotland sent to the 
army — out of a total population of five million! 
One in five of all her people have gone. No coun- 
try in the world has ever matched that record. 
Ah, there were no slackers in Scotland ! And they 
are still going — they are still going! As fast as 
they are old enough, as fast as restrictions are 
removed, so that men are taken who were turned 
back at first by the recruiting officers, as fast as 
men see to it that some provision is made for 
those they must leave behind them, they are put- 
ting on the King's uniform and going out against 
the Hun. My country, my ain Scotland, is not 
great in area. It is not a rich country in worldly 
goods or money. But it is big with a bigness be- 
yond measurement, it is rich beyond the wildest 
dreams of avarice, in patriotism, in love of coun- 
try, and in bravery. 



98 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

We have few young men left in Scotland. It is 
rarely indeed that in a Scottish village, in a glen, 
even in a city, you see a young man in these days. 
Only the very old are left, and the men of middle 
age. And you know why the young men you see 
are there. They cannot go, because, although 
their spirit is willing their flesh is too weak to let 
them go, for one reason or another. Factory and 
field and forge — all have been stripped to fill the 
Scottish regiments and keep them at their full 
strength. And in Scotland, as in England, women 
have stepped in to fill the places their men have 
left vacant. This war is not to be fought by men 
alone. Women have their part to play, and they 
are playing it nobly, day after day. The women 
of Scotland have seen their duty; they have 
heard their country's call, and they have an- 
swered it. 

You will find it hard to discover anyone in 
domestic service to-day in Scotland. The folk 
who used to keep servants sent them packing long 
since, to work where they would be of more use 
to their country. The women of each household 
are doing the work about the house, little though 
they may have been accustomed to such tasks in 
the days of peace. And they glory and take pride 
in the knowledge that they are helping to fill a 
place in the munitions factories or in some other 
necessary war work. 

Do not look along the Scottish roads for folk 




a, 



be 

s 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 99 

riding in motor cars for pleasure. Indeed, you 
will waste your time if you look for pleasure- 
making of any sort in Scotland to-day. Scotland 
lias gone back to her ancient business of war, and 
she is carrying it on in the most businesslike way, 
sternly and relentlessly. But that is true all over 
the United Kingdom ; I do not claim that Scotland 
takes the war more seriously than the rest of 
Britain. But I do think that she has set an exam- 
ple by the way she has flung herself, tooth and 
nail, into the mighty task that confronts us all — 
all of us allies who are leagued against the Hun 
and his plan to conquer the world and make it 
bow its neck in submission under his iron heel. 

Let me tell you how Scotland takes this war. 
Let me show you the homecoming of a Scottish 
soldier, back from the trenches on leave. Why, 
he is received with no more ceremony than if he 
were coming home from his day's work! 

Donald — or Jock might be his name, or Andy ! 
— steps from the train at his old hame town. He 
is fresh from the mud of the Flanders trenches, 
and all his possessions and his kit are on his back, 
so that he is more like a beast of burden than the 
natty creature old tradition taught us to think a 
soldier must always be. On his boots there are 
still dried blobs of mud from some hole in France 
that is like a crater in hell. His uniform will be 
pretty sure to be dirty, too, and torn, and perhaps, 
if you looked closely at it, you would see stains 



100 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

upon it that you might not be far wrong in guess- 
ing to be blood. 

Leave long enough to let him come home to 
Scotland — a long road it is from France to Scot- 
land these days ! — has been a rare thing for Jock. 
He will have been campaigning a long time to 
earn it — months certainly, and maybe even years. 
Perhaps he was one of these who went out first. 
He may have been mentioned in dispatches ; there 
may be a distinguished conduct medal hidden 
about him somewhere — worth all the iron crosses 
the Kaiser ever gave ! He has seen many a bloody 
field, be sure of that. He has heard the sounding 
of the gas alarm, and maybe got a whiff of the 
dirty poison gas the Huns turned loose against 
our boys. He has looked Death in the face so 
often that he has grown used to him. But now 
he is back in Scotland, safe and sound, free from 
battle and the work of the trenches for a space, 
home to gain new strength for his next bout with 
Fritz across the water. 

When he gets off the train Jock looks about 
him, from force of habit. But no one has come 
to the station to meet him, and he looks as if that 
gave him neither surprise nor concern. For a 
minute, perhaps, he will look around him, wonder- 
ing, I think, that things are so much as they were, 
fixing in his mind the old familiar scenes that 
have brought him cheer so often in black, deadly 
nights in the trenches or in lonely billets out there 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 101 

in France. And then, quietly, and as if he were 
indeed just home from some short trip, he shifts 
his pack, so that it lies comfortably across his 
back, and trudges off. There would be cabs 
around the station, but it would not come into 
Jock's mind to hail one of the drivers. He has 
been used to using Shank's Mare in France when 
he wanted to go anywhere, and so now he sets off 
quietly, with his long, swinging soldier's stride. 

As he walks along he is among scenes familiar 
to him since his boyhood. Yon house, yon barn, 
yon wooded rise against the sky are landmarks 
for him. And he is pretty sure to meet old 
friends. They nod to him, pleasantly, and with a 
smile, but there is no excitement, no strangeness, 
in their greeting. For all the emotion they show, 
these folk to whom he has come back, as from the 
grave, they might have seen him yesterday, and 
the day before that, and the war never have been 
at all. And Jock thinks nothing of it that they 
are not more excited about him. You and I may 
be thinking of Jock as a hero, but that is not his 
idea about himself. He is just a Tommy, home 
on leave from France — one of a hundred thou- 
sand, maybe. And if he thought at all about the 
way his home folk greeted him it would be just 
so — that he could not expect them to be making a 
fuss about one soldier out of so many. And, since 
he, Jock, is not much excited, not much worked 
up, because he is seeing these good folk again, he 



102 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

does not think it strange that they are not more 
excited about the sight of him. It would be if 
they did make a fuss over him, and welcome him 
loudly, that he would think it strange ! 

And at last he comes to his own old home. He 
will stop and look around a bit. Maybe he has 
seen that old house a thousand times out there, 
tried to remember every line and corner of it. 
And maybe, as he looks down the quiet village 
street, he is thinking of how different France was. 
And, deep down in his heart, Jock is glad that 
everything is as it was, and that nothing has been 
changed. He could not tell you why ; he could not 
put his feeling into words. But it is there, deep 
down, and the truer and the keener because it is 
so deep. Ah, Jock may take it quietly, and there 
may be no way for him to show his heart, but he 
is glad to be home ! 

And at his gate will come, as a rule, Jock's first 
real greeting. A dog, grown old since his depar- 
ture, will come out, wagging his tail, and licking 
the soldier's hand. And Jock will lean down, and 
give his old dog a pat. If the dog had not come 
he would have been surprised and disappointed. 
And so, glad with every fibre of his being, Jock 
goes in, and finds father and mother and sisters 
within. They look up at his coming, and their 
happiness shines for a moment in their eyes. But 
they are not the sort of people to show their emo- 
tions or make a fuss. Mother and girls will rise 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 103 

and kiss him, and begin to take his gear, and his 
father will shake him by the hand. 

''Well," the father will ask, *'how are you get- 
ting along, lad?" 

And — " All right," he will answer. That is the 
British soldier's answer to that question, always 
and everywhere. 

Then he sits down, happy and at rest, and lights 
his pipe, maybe, and looks about the old room 
which holds so many memories for him. And sup- 
per will be ready, you may be sure. They will not 
have much to say, these folk of Jock's, but if you 
look at his face as dish after dish is set before 
him, you will understand that this is a feast that 
has been prepared for him. They may have been 
going without sorts of good things themselves, 
but they have contrived, in some fashion, to have 
them all for Jock. All Scotland has tightened its 
belt, and done its part, in that fashion, as in every 
other, toward the winning of the war. But for the 
soldiers the best is none too good. And Jock's 
folk would rather make him welcome so, by proof 
that takes no words, than by demonstrations of 
delight and of affection. 

As he eats, they gather round him at the board, 
and they tell him all the gossip of the neighbor- 
hood. He does not talk about the war, and, if they 
are curious — probably they are not ! — they do not 
ask him questions. They think that he wants to 
forget about the war and the trenches and the 



104? A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

mud, and they are right. And so, after he has 
eaten his fill, he lights his pipe again, and sits 
about. And maybe, as it grows dark, he takes a 
bit walk into town. He walks slowly, as if he is 
glad that for once he need not be in a hurry, and 
he stops to look into shop windows as if he had 
never seen their stocks before, though you may be 
sure that, in a Scottish village, he has seen every- 
thing they have to offer hundreds of times. 

He will meet friends, maybe, and they will stop 
and nod to him. And perhaps one of six will stop 
longer. 

**How are you getting on, Jock?" will be the 
question. 

"All right!" Jock will say. And he will think 
the question rather fatuous, maybe. If he were 
not all right, how should he be there ? But if Jock 
had lost both legs, or an arm, or if he had been 
blinded, that would still be his answer. Those 
words have become a sort of slogan for the Brit- 
ish army, that typify its spirit. 

Jock's walk is soon over, and he goes home, by 
an old path that is known to him, every foot of 
it, and goes to bed in his own old bed. He has 
not broken into the routine of the household, and 
he sees no reason why he should. And the next 
day it is much the same for him. He gets up as 
early as he ever did, and he is likely to do a few 
odd bits of work that his father has not had time 
to come to. He talks with his mother and the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 105 

girls of all sorts of little, commonplace things, 
and with his father he discusses the affairs of the 
community. And in the evening he strolls down 
town again, and exchanges a few words with 
friends, and learns, perhaps, of boys who haven't 
been lucky enough to get home on leave — of boys 
with whom he grew up, who have gone west. 

So it goes on for several days, each day the 
same. Jock is quietly happy. It is no task to 
entertain him ; he does not want to be entertained. 
The peace and quiet of home are enough for him ; 
they are change enough from the turmoil of the 
front and the ceaseless grind of the life in the 
army in France. 

And then Jock's leave nears its end, and it is 
time for him to go back. He tells them, and he 
makes his few small preparations. They will 
have cleaned his kit for him, and mended some 
of his things that needed mending. And when it 
is time for him to go they help him on with his 
pack and he kisses his mother and the girls 
good-by, and shakes hands with his father. 

''Well, good-by," Jock says. He might be 
going to work in a factory a few miles off. ''I'll 
be all right. Good-by, now. Don't you cry, now, 
mother, and you, Jeannie and Maggie. Don't you 
fash yourselves about me. I'll be back again. 
And if I shouldn't come back — ^why, I'll be all 
right." 

So he goes, and they stand looking after him, 



106 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

and his old dog wonders why he is going, and 
where, and makes a move to follow him, maybe. 
But he marches off down the street, alone, never 
looking back, and is waiting when the train comes. 
It will be full of other Jocks and Andrews and 
Tarns, on their way back to France, like him, and 
he will nod to some he knows as he settles down 
in the carriage. 

And in just two days Jock will have traveled 
the length of England, and crossed the channel, 
and ridden up to the front. He will have re- 
ported himself, and have been ordered, with his 
company, into the trenches. And on the third 
night, had you followed him, you might see him 
peering over the parapet at the lines of the Hun, 
across No Man's Land, and listening to the whine 
of bullets and the shriek of shells over his head, 
with a star shell, maybe, to throw a green light 
upon him for a moment. 

So it is that a warrior comes and that a war- 
rior goes in a land where war is war; in a land 
where war has become the business of all every 
day, and has settled down into a matter of routine. 



CHAPTER XI 

I COULD not, much as I should in many ways 
have liked to do so, prolong my stay in Scot- 
land. The peace and the restfulness of the 
Highlands, the charm of the heather and the hills, 
the long, lazy days with my rod, whipping some 
favorite stream — ah, they made me happy for a 
moment, but they could not make me forget ! My 
duty called me back, and the thought of war, and 
suffering, and there were moments when it seemed 
to me that nothing could keep me from plung- 
ing again into the work I had set out to do. 

In those days I was far too restless to be taking 
my ease at home, in my wee hoose at Dunoon. A 
thousand activities called me. The rest had been 
necessary; I had had to admit that, and to obey 
my doctor, for I had been feeling the strain of 
my long continued activity, piled up, as it was, 
on top of my grief and care. And yet I was eager 
to be off and about my work again. 

I did not want to go back to the same work I 
had been doing. No! I was still a young man. 
I was younger than men and officers who were 
taking their turn in the trenches. I was but forty- 
six years old, and there was a lot of life and snap 
in the old dog yet! My life had been rightly 

107 



108 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

lived. As a young man I had worked in a pit, ye 
ken, and that had given me a strength in my back 
and my legs that would have served me well in 
the trenches. War, these days, means hard work 
as well as fighting — more, indeed. War is a busi- 
ness, a great industry, now. There is all manner 
of work that must be done at the front and right 
behind it. Aye, and I was eager to be there and 
to be doing my share of it — and not for the first 
time. 

Many a time, and often, I had broached my idea 
of being allowed to enlist, e'en before the Huns 
killed my boy. But they would no listen to me. 
They told me, each time, that there was more and 
better work for me to do at hame in Britain, spur- 
ring others on, cheering them when they came 
back maimed and broken, getting the country to 
put its shoulder to the wheel when it came to sub- 
scribing to the war loans and all the rest of it. 
And it seemed to me that it was not for me to 
decide ; that I must obey those who were better in 
a position to judge than I could be. 

I went down south to England, and I talked 
again of enlisting and trying to get a crack at 
those who had killed my boy. And again my 
friends refused to listen to me. 

**Why, Harry," they said to me — and not my 
own friends, only, but men highly placed enough 
to make me know that I must pay heed to what 
they said — *'you must not think of it! If you en- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 109 

listed, or if we got you a commission, you 'd be but 
one man out there. Here you're worth many men 
— a brigade, or a division, maybe. You are more 
use to us than many men who go out there to 
fight. You do great things toward winning the 
war every day. No, Harry, there is work for 
every man in Britain to do, and you have found 
yours and are doing it." 

I was not content, though, even when I seemed 
to agree with them. I did try to argue, but it was 
no use. And still I felt that it was no time for a 
man to be playing and to be giving so much of his 
time to making others gay. It was well for folk 
to laugh, and to get their minds oif the horror of 
war for a little time. Well I knew! Aye, and I 
believed that I was doing good, some good at 
least, and giving cheer to some puir laddies who 
needed it sorely. But — weel, it was no what I 
wanted to be doing when my country was fighting 
for her life ! I made up my mind, slowly, what it 
was that I wanted to do that would fit in with the 
ideas and wishes of those whose word I was 
bound to heed and that would still come closer 
than what I was doing to meet my own desires. 

Every day, nearly, then, I was getting letters 
from the front. They came from laddies whom 
I'd helped to make up their minds that they be- 
longed over yon, where the men were. Some were 
from boys who came from aboot Dunoon. I'd 
known those laddies since they were bits o ' bairns, 



110 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

most of them. And then there were letters — and 
they touched me as much and came as close 
home as any of them — from boys who were utter 
strangers to me, but who told me they felt they 
knew me because they'd seen me on the stage, or 
because their phonograph, maybe, played some of 
my records, and because they'd read that my boy 
had shared their dangers and given his life, as 
they were ready, one and all, to do. 

And those letters, nearly all, had the same re- 
frain. They wanted me. They wanted me to 
come to them, since they couldn't be coming 
to me. 

' ' Come on out here and see us and sing for us, 
Harry," they'd write to me. "It'd be a fair treat 
to see your mug and hear you singing about the 
wee hoose amang the heather or the bonnie, bon- 
nie lassie!" 

How could a man get such a plea as that and 
not want to do what those laddies asked? How 
could he think of the great deal they were doing 
and not want to do the little bit they asked of him? 
But it was no a simple matter, ye '11 ken ! I could 
not pack a bag and start for France from Charing 
Cross or Victoria as I might have done — and often 
did — ^before the war. No one might go to France 
unless he had passports and leave from the war 
office, and many another sort of arrangement 
there was to make. But I set wheels in motion. 

Just to go to France to sing for the boys would 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 111 

have been easy enough. They told me that at 
once. 

"What? Harry Lauder wants to go to France 
to sing for the soldiers? He shall — whenever he 
pleases ! Tell him we '11 be glad to send him ! ' ' 

So said the war office. But I knew what they 
meant. They meant for me to go to one or more 
of the British bases and give concerts. There 
were troops moving in and out of the bases all the 
time; men who'd been in the trenches or in action 
in an offensive and were back in rest billets, or 
even further back, were there in their thousands. 
But it was the real front I was eager to reach. I 
wanted to be where my boy had been, and to see 
his grave. I wanted to sing for the laddies who 
were bearing the brunt of the big job over there 
— while they were bearing it. 

And that no one had done. Many of our lead- 
ing actors and singers and other entertainers 
were going back and forth to France all the time. 
Never a week went by but they were helping to 
cheer up the boys at the bases. It was a grand 
work they were doing, and the boys were grateful 
to them, and all Britain should share that grati- 
tude. But it was a wee bit more that I wanted to 
be doing, and there was the rub. 

I wanted to go up to the battle lines themselves 
and to sing for the boys who were in the thick of 
the struggle with the Hun. I wanted to give a 
concert in a front-line trench where the Huns 



112 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

could hear me, if they cared to listen. I wanted 
them to learn once more the lesson we could never 
teach them often enough — the lesson of the spirit 
of the British army, that could go into battle with 
a laugh on its lips. 

But at iSrst I got no encouragement at all when 
I told what it was in my mind to do. My friends 
who had influence shook their heads. 

**I'm afraid it can't be managed, Harry," they 
told me. *' It's never been done." 

I told them what I believed myself, and what I 
have often thought of when things looked hard 
and prospects were dark. I told them everything 
had to be done for the first time sometime, and I 
begged them not to give up the effort to win my 
way for me. And so I knew that when they told 
me no one had done it before it wasn't reason 
enough why I shouldn't do it. And I made up my 
mind that I would be the pioneer in giving con- 
certs under fire if that should turn out to be a part 
of the contract. 

But I could not argue. I could only say what it 
was that I wanted to do, and wait the pleasure of 
those whose duty it was to decide. I couldn't tell 
the military authorities where they must send me. 
It was for me to obey when they gave their orders, 
and to go wherever they thought I would do the 
most good. I would not have you thinking that I 
was naming conditions, and saying I would go 
where I pleased or bide at hame ! That was not 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 113 

my way. All I could do was to hope that in the 
end they would see matters as I did and so decide 
to let me have my way. But I was ready for my 
orders, whatever they might be. 

There was one thing I wanted, above all others, 
to do when I got to France, and so much I said. I 
wanted to meet the Highland Brigade, and see the 
bonnie laddies in their kilts as the Huns saw them 
— the Huns, who called them the Ladies from 
Hell, and hated them worse than they hated any 
troops in the whole British army. 

Ha' ye heard the tale of the Scotsman and the 
Jew? Sandy and Ikey they were, and they were 
having a disputatious argument together. Each 
said he could name more great men of his race 
who were famous in history than the other could. 
And they argued, and nearly came to blows, and 
were no further along until they thought of mak- 
ing a bet. An odd bet it was. For each great 
name that Sandy named of a Scot whom history 
had honored he was to pull out one of Ikey's hairs, 
and Ikey was to have the same privilege. 

''Do ye begin!" said Sandy. 

''Moses!" said Ikey, and pulled. 

"Bobbie Burns!" cried Sandy, and returned 
the compliment. 

"Abraham!" said Ikey, and pulled again. 

' ' Ouch — Duggie Haig ! ' ' said Sandy. 

And then Ikey grabbed a handful of hairs at 
once. 



114. A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

*' Joseph and his brethren!" he said, gloating a 
bit as he watched the tears starting from Sandy's 
eyes at the pain of losing so many good hairs at 
once. 

**So it's pulling them out in bunches ye are!" 

said Sandy. ''Ah, well, man " And he 

reached with both his hands for Ikey's thatch. 

"The Hieland Brigade!" he roared, and pulled 
all the hairs his two hands would hold ! 

Ah, weel, there are sad thoughts that come to 
me, as well as proud and happy ones, when I think 
of the bonnie kilted laddies who fought and died 
so nobly out there against the Hun ! They were 
my own laddies, those, and it was with them and 
amang them that my boy went to his death. It 
was amang them I would find, I thought, those 
who could tell me more than I knew of how he had 
died, and of how he had lived before he died. And 
I thought the boys of the brigade would be glad 
to see me and to hear my songs — songs of their 
hames and their ain land, auld Scotland. And so 
I used what influence I had, and did not think it 
wrong to employ at such a time, and in such a 
cause. For I knew that if they sent me to the 
Hieland Brigade they would be sending me to the 
front of the front line — for that was where I 
would have to go seeking the Hieland laddies ! 

I waited as patiently as I could. And then one 
day I got my orders! I was delighted, for the 
thing they had told me could not be done had 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 115 

actually been arranged for me. I was asked to get 
ready to go to France to entertain the soldiers, 
and it was the happiest day I had known since I 
had heard of my boy's death. 

There was not much for me to do in the way of 
making ready. The whole trip, of course, would 
be a military one. I might be setting out as a 
minstrel for France, but every detail of my ar- 
rangements had to be made in accordance with 
military rules, and once I reached France I would 
be under the orders of the army in every move- 
ment I might make. All that was carefully ex- 
plained to me. 

But still there were things for me to think about 
and to arrange. I wanted some sort of accom- 
paniment for my songs, and how to get it puzzled 
me for a time. But there was a firm in London 
that made pianos that heard of my coming trip, 
and solved that problem for me. They built, and 
they presented to me, the weest piano ever you 
saw — a piano so wee that it could be carried in 
an ordinary motor car. Only five octaves it had, 
but it Was big enough, and sma' enough at once. 
I was delighted with it, and so were all who saw 
it. It weighed only about a hundred and fifty 
pounds — less than even a middling stout man! 
And it was cunningly built, so that no space at all 
was wasted. Mrs. Lauder, when she saw it, called 
it cute, and so did every other woman who laid 
eyes upon it. It was designed to be carried on the 



116 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

grid of a motor car — and so it was, for many miles 
of shell-torn roads ! 

When I was sure of my piano I thought of 
another thing it would be well for me to take with 
me. And so I spent a hundred pounds — a thou- 
sand American dollars — for cigarettes. I knew 
they would be welcome everywhere I went. It 
makes no matter how many cigarettes we send to 
France, there will never be enough. My friends 
thought I was making a mistake in taking so 
many ; they were afraid they would make matters 
hard when it came to transportation, and re- 
minded me that I faced difficulties in that respect 
in France it was nearly impossible for us at home 
in Britain to visualize at all. But I had my mind 
and my heart set on getting those fags — a ciga- 
rette is a fag to every British soldier — to my des- 
tination with me. Indeed, I thought they would 
mean more to the laddies out there than I could 
hope to do myself! 

I was not to travel alone. My tour was to in- 
clude two traveling companions of distinction and 
fame. One was James Hogge, M.P., member from 
East Edinburgh, who was eager, as so many mem- 
bers of Parliament were, to see for himself how 
things were at the front. James Hogge was one 
of the members most liked by the soldiers. He 
had worked hard for them, and gained — and well 
earned — ^much fame by the way he struggled with 
the matter of getting the right sort of pensions 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 117 

for the laddies who were offering their lives. 

The other distinguished companion I was to 
have was an old and good friend of mine, the 
Reverend George Adam, then a secretary to the 
Minister of Munitions. He lived in Ilford, a 
suburb of London, then, but is now in Montreal, 
Canada. I was glad of the opportunity to travel 
with both these men, for I knew that one's trav- 
eling companions, on such a tour, were of the 
utmost importance in determining its success or 
failure, and I could not have chosen a better pair, 
had the choice been left to me — which, of course, 
it was not. 

There we were, you see — the Reverend George 
Adaan, Harry Lauder and James Hogge, M.P. 
And no sooner did the soldiers hear of the com- 
bination than our tour was named ** The Rev- 
erend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour" was what we 
were called! And that absurd name stuck to us 
through our whole journey, in France, up and 
down the battle line, and until we came home to 
England and broke up ! 



CHAPTER XII 

UP to that time I had thought I knew a good 
deal about the war. I had had much news 
from my boy. I had talked, I think, to as 
many returned soldiers as any man in Britain. 
I had seen much of the backwash and the wretched 
aftermath of war. Ah, yes, I thought I knew 
more than most folk did of what war meant ! But 
until my tour began, as I see now, easily enough, 
I knew nothing — literally nothing at all! 

There are towns and ports in Britain that are 
military areas. One may not enter them except 
upon business, the urgency of which has been 
established to the satisfaction of the military 
authorities. One must have a permit to live in 
them, even if they be one's home town. These 
towns are vital to the war and its successful 
prosecution. 

Until one has seen a British port of embarka- 
tion in this war one has no real beginning, even, 
of a conception of the task the war has imposed 
upon Britain. It was so with me, I know, and 
since then other men have told me the same thing. 
There the army begins to pour into the funnel, so 
to speak, that leads to France and the front. 
There all sorts of lines are brought together, all 

118 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 119 

sorts of scattered activities come to a focus. 
There is incessant activity, day and night. 

It was from Folkestone, on the southeast coast, 
that the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P. Tour was 
to embark. And we reached Folkestone on June 
7, 1917. 

Folkestone, in time of peace, was one of the 
greatest of the Southern watering places. It is a 
lovely spot. Great hotels line the Leas, a glorious 
promenade, along the top of chalk cliffs, that looks 
out over the Channel. In the distance one fancies 
one may see the coast of France, beyond the blue 
water. 

There is green grass everywhere behind the 
beach. Folkestone has a miniature harbor, that 
in time of peace gave shelter to the fishing fleet 
and to the channel steamers that plied to and 
from Boulogne, in France. The harbor is guarded 
by stone jetties. It has been greatly enlarged now 
— so has all Folkestone, for that matter. But I 
am remembering the town as it was in peace ! 

There was no pleasanter and kindlier resort 
along that coast. The beach was wonderful, and 
all summer long it attracted bathers and children 
at play. Bathing machines lined the beach, of 
course, within the limits of the town ; those queer, 
old, clumsy looking wagons, with a dressing cabin 
on wheels, that were drawn up and down accord- 
ing to the tide, so that bathers might enter the 
water from them directly. There, as in most Brit- 



120 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

ish towns, women bathed at one part of the beach, 
men at the other, and all in the most decorous 
and modest of costumes. 

But at Folkestone, in the old days of peace, 
about a mile from the town limits, there was 
another stretch of beach where all the gay folk 
bathed — men and women together. And there the 
costumes were such as might be seen at Deauville 
or Ostend, Etretat or Trouville. Highly they 
scandalized the good folk of Folkestone, to be sure 
— but little was said, and nothing was done, for, 
after all those were the folk who spent the money ! 
They dressed in white tents that gleamed against 
the sea, and a pretty splash of color they made 
on a bright day for the soberer folk to go and 
watch, as they sat on the low chalk cliffs above 
them! 

Gone — gone ! Such days have passed for Folke- 
stone! They will no doubt come again — but 
when! When? 

June the seventh ! Folkestone should have been 
gay for the beginning of the onset of summer 
visitors. Sea bathing should just have been be- 
ginning to be attractive, as the sun warmed the 
sea and the beach. But when we reached the town 
war was over all. Men in uniform were every- 
where. Warships lay outside the harbor. Khaki 
and guns, men trudging along, bearing the bur- 
dens of war, motor trucks, rushing ponderously 
along, carrying ammunition and food, messengers 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 121 

on motorcycles, sounding to all traffic that might 
be in the way the clamorous summons to clear the 
path — those were the sights we saw ! 

How hopelessly confused it all seemed ! I could 
not believe that there was order in the chaos that 
I saw. But that was because the key to all that 
bewildering activity was not in my possession. 

Every man had his appointed task. He was a 
cog in the greatest machine the world has ever 
seen. He knew just what he was to do, and how 
much time had been allowed for the performance 
of his task. It was assumed he would not fail. 
The British army makes that assumption, and it 
is warranted. 

I hear praise, even from men who hate the Hun 
as I hate him, for the superb military organiza- 
tion of the German army. They say the Kaiser's 
people may well take pride in that. But I say that 
I am prouder of what Britain and the new British 
army that has come into being since this war be- 
gan have done than any German has a right to 
be ! They spent forty-four years in making ready 
for a war they knew they meant, some day, to 
fight. We had not had, that day that I first saw 
our machine really functioning, as many months 
for preparation as they had had years. And yet 
we were doing our part. 

We had had to build and prepare while we 
helped our ally, France, to hold off that gray 
horde that had swept down so treacherously 



122 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

through Belgium from the north and east. It was 
as if we had organized and trained and equipped 
a fire brigade while the fire was burning, and while 
our first devoted fighters sought to keep it in check 
with water buckets. And they did! They did! 
The water buckets served while the hose was 
made, and the mains were laid, and the hydrants 
set in place, and the trained firemen were made 
ready to take up the task. 

And, now that I had come to Folkestone, now 
that I was seeing the results of all the labor that 
had been performed, the effect of all the prodigies 
of organization, I began to know what Lord 
Kitchener and those who had worked with him 
had done. System ruled everything at Folke- 
stone. Nothing, it seeemd to me, as officers ex- 
plained as much as they properly could, had been 
left to chance. Here was order indeed. 

In the air above us airplanes flew to and fro. 
They circled about like great, watchful hawks. 
They looped and whirled around, cutting this way 
and that, circling always. And I knew that, as 
they flew about outside the harbor the men in them 
were never off their guard; that they were peer- 
ing down, watching every moment for the first 
trace of a submarine that might have crept 
through the more remote defenses of the Channel. 
Let a submarine appear — its shrift would be short 
indeed ! 

There, above, waited the airplanes. And on the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 123 

surface of the sea sinister destroyers darted 
about as watchful as the jSyers above, ready for 
any emergency that might arise. I have no doubt 
that submarines of our own lurked below, waiting, 
too, to do their part. But those, if any there 
were, I did not see. And one asks no questions 
at a place like Folkestone. I was glad of any in- 
formation an officer might voluntarily give me. 
But it was not for me or any other loyal Briton to 
put him in the position of having to refuse to an- 
swer. 

Soon a great transport was pointed out to me, 
lying beside the jetty. Gangplanks were down, 
and up them streams of men in khaki moved end- 
lessly. Up they went, in an endless brown river, 
to disappear into the ship. The whole ship was a 
very hive of activity. Not only men were going 
aboard, but supplies of every sort; boxes of am- 
munition, stores, food. And I understood, and 
was presently to see, that beyond her sides there 
was the same ordered scene as prevailed on shore. 
Every man knew his task; the stowing away of 
everything that was being carried aboard was be- 
ing carried out systematically and with the utmost 
possible economy of time and effort. 

*' That's the ship you will cross the Channel 
on, " I was told. And I regarded her with a new 
interest. I do not know what part she had been 
wont to play in time of peace ; what useful, pleas- 
ant journeys it had been her part to complete. I 



124 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

only knew that she was to carry me to France, and 
to the place where my heart was and for a long 
time had been. Me — and two thousand men who 
were to be of real use over there ! 

We were nearly the last to go on board. We 
found the decks swarming with men. Ah, the 
braw laddies ! They smoked and they laughed as 
they settled themselves for the trip. Never a one 
looked as though he might be sorry to be there. 
They were leaving behind them all the good 
things, all the pleasant things, of life as, in time 
of peace, every one of them had learned to live it 
and to know it. Long, long since had the last 
illusion faded of the old days when war had 
seemed a thing of pomp and circumstance and 
glory. 

They knew well, those boys, what it was they 
faced. Hard, grinding work they could look for- 
ward to doing ; such work as few of them had ever 
known in the old days. Death and wounds they 
could reckon upon as the portion of just about so 
many of them. There would be bitter cold, later, 
in the trenches, and mud, and standing for hours 
in icy mud and water. There would be hard fare, 
and scanty, sometimes, when things went wrong. 
There would be gas attacks, and the bursting of 
shells about them with all sorts of poisons in them. 
Always there would be the deadliest perils of 
these perilous days. 

But they sang as they set out upon the great 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 125 

adventure of their lives. They smiled and 
laughed. They cheered me, so that the tears 
started from my eyes, when they saw me, and 
they called the gayest of gay greetings, though 
they knew that I was going only for a little while, 
and that many of them had set foot on British soil 
for the last time. The steady babble of their 
voices came to our ears, and they swarmed below 
us like ants as they disposed themselves about the 
decks, and made the most of the scanty space that 
was allowed for them. The trip was to be short, 
of course ; there were too few ships, and the prob- 
lems of convoy were too great, to make it possible 
to make the voyage a comfortable one. It was a 
case of getting them over as might best be ar- 
ranged. 

A word of command rang out and was passed 
around by officers and non coms. 

"Life belts must be put on before the ship 
sails ! ' ' 

That simple order brought home the grim facts 
of war at that moment as scarcely anything else 
could have done. Here was a grim warning of 
the peril that lurked outside. Everywhere men 
were scurrying to obey — I among the rest. The 
order applied as much to us civilians as it did to 
any of the soldiers. And my belt did not fit, and 
was hard, extremely hard, for me to don. I could 
no manage it at all by myself, but Adam and 
Hogge had had an easier time with theirs, and 



126 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

they came to my help. Among us we got mine on, 
and Hogge stood off, and looked at me, and 
smiled. 

"An extraordinary effect, Harry!" he said, 
with a smile. ''I declare — it gives you the most 
charming embonpoint!" 

I had my doubts about his use of the word 
charming. I know that I should not have cared 
to have anyone judge of my looks from a picture 
taken as I looked then, had one been taken. 

But it was not a time for such thoughts. For a 
civilian, especially, and one not used to journeys 
in such times as these, there is a thrill and a solem- 
nity about the donning of a life preserver. I felt 
that I was indeed, it might be, taking a risk in 
making this journey, and it was an awesome 
thought that I, too, might have seen my native 
land for the last time, and said a real good-by to 
those whom I had left behind me. 

Now we cast off, and begun to move, and a thrill 
ran through me such as I had never known before 
in all my life. I went to the rail as we turned our 
nose toward the open sea. A destroyer was 
ahead, another was beside us, others rode steadily 
along on either side. It was the most reassuring 
of sights to see them. They looked so business 
like, so capable. I could not imagine a Hun sub- 
marine as able to evade their watchfulness. And 
moreover, there were the watchful man birds 
above us, the circling airplanes, that could make 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 127 

out, so much better than could any lookout on a 
ship, the first trace of the presence of a tin fish. 
No — I was not afraid! I trusted in the British 
navy, which had guarded the sea lane so well that 
not a man had lost his life as the result of a Hun 
attack, although many millions had gone back 
and forth to France since the beginning of the 
war. 

I did not stay with my own party. I preferred 
to move about among the Soldiers. I was deeply 
interested in them, as I have always been. And 
I wanted to make friends among them, and see 
how they felt. 

*'Lor' lumme — its old 'Arry Lauder!" said one 
cockney. *'God bless you, 'Arry — many's the 
time I've sung with you in the 'alls. It's good to 
see you with us ! " 

And so I was greeted everywhere. Man after 
man crowded around me to shake hands. It 
brought a lump into my throat to be greeted so, 
and it made me more than ever glad that the mili- 
tary authorities had been able to see their way to 
grant my request. It confirmed my belief that I 
was going where I might be really useful to the 
men who were ready and willing to make the 
greatest of all sacrifices in the cause so close to all 
our hearts. 

When I first went aboard the transport I picked 
up a little gold stripe. It was one of those men 
wear who have been wounded, as a badge of 



128 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

honor. I hoped I might be able to find the man 
who had lost it, and return it to him. But none 
of them claimed it, and I have kept it, to this day, 
as a souvenir of that voyage. 

It was easy for them to know me. I wore my 
kilt and my cap, and my knife in my stocking, as 
I have always done, on the stage, and nearly al- 
ways off it as well. And so they recognized me 
without difficulty. And never a one called me any- 
thing but Harry — except when it was 'Arry! I 
think I would be much affronted if ever a British 
soldier called me Mr. Lauder. I don't know — ^be- 
cause not one of them ever did, and I hope none 
ever will ! 

They told me that there were men from the 
Highlands on board, and I went looking for them, 
and found them after a time, though going about 
that ship, so crowded she was, was no easy mat- 
ter. They were Gordon Highlanders, mostly, I 
found, and they were glad to see me, and made me 
welcome, and I had a pipe with them, and a good 
talk. 

Many of them were going back, after having 
been at home, recuperating from wounds. And 
they and the new men too were all eager and 
anxious to be put there and at work. 

"Gie us a chance at the Huns — it's all we're 
asking," said one of a new draft. ** They 're tell- 
ing us they don't like the sight of our kilts, Harry, 
and that a Hun's got less stomach for the cold 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 129 

steel of a bayonet than for anything else on earth. 
Weel — we're carrying a dose of it for them!" 

And the men who had been out before, and were 
taking back with them the scars they had earned, 
were just as anxious as the rest. That was the 
spirit of every man on board. They did not like 
war as war, but they knew that this was a war 
that must be fought to the finish, and never a man 
of them wanted peace to come until Fritz had 
learned his lesson to the bottom of the last grim 
page. 

I never heard a word of the danger of meeting 
a submarine. The idea that one might send a tor- 
pedo after us popped into my mind once or twice, 
but when it did I looked out at the destroyers, 
guarding us, and the airplanes above, and I felt 
as safe as if I had been in bed in my wee hoose at 
Dunoon. It was a true highway of war that those 
whippets of the sea had made the Channel cross- 
ing. 

Ahm, but I was proud that day of the British 
navy! It is a great task that it has performed, 
and nobly it has done it. And it was proud and 
glad I was again when we sighted land, as we soon 
did, and I knew that I was gazing, for the first 
time since war had been declared, upon the shores 
of our great ally, France. It was the great day 
and the proud day and the happy day for me ! 

I was near the realizing of an old dream I had 
often had. I was with the soldiers who had my 



130 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

love and my devotion, and I was coming to France 
— the France that every Scotchman learns to love 
at his mother's breast. 

A stir ran through the men. Orders began to 
fly, and I went back to my place and my party. 
Soon we would be ashore, and I would be in the 
way of beginning the work I had come to do. 




A tatter of plaid of the Black Watch .m a wire of a German 
entanglement barely suggests the hell the Scotch troops have 
gone through. 



CHAPTER Xni 

BOULOGNE ! 
Like Folkestone, Boulogne, in happier 
times, had been a watering place, less fash- 
ionable than some on the French coast, but the 
pleasant resort of many in search of health and 
pleasure. And like Folkestone it had suffered the 
blight of war. The war had laid its heavy hand 
upon the port. It ruled everything; it was omni- 
present. From the moment when we came into 
full view of the harbor it was impossible to think 
of anything else. 

Folkestone had made me think of the mouth of 
a great funnel, into which all broad Britain had 
been pouring men and guns and all the manifold 
supplies and stores of modern war. And the trip 
across the narrow, well guarded lane in the Chan- 
nel had been like the pouring of water through the 
neck of that same funnel. Here in Boulogne was 
the opening. Here the stream of men and sup- 
plies spread out to begin its orderly, irresistible 
flow to the front. All of northern France and 
Belgium lay before that stream; it had to cover 
all the great length of the British front. Not 
from Boulogne alone, of course; I knew of Dun- 

131 



132 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

kirk and Calais, and guessed at other ports. 
There were other funnels, and into all of them, 
day after day, Britain was pouring her tribute; 
through all of them she was offering her sacrifice, 
to be laid upon the altar of strife. 

Here, much more than at Folkestone, as it 
chanced, I saw at once another thing. There was 
a double funnel. The stream ran both ways. 
For, as we steamed into Boulogne, a ship was 
coming out — a ship with a grim and tragic burden. 
She was one of our hospital ships. But she was 
guarded as carefully by destroyers and aircraft as 
our transport had been. The Red Cross meant 
nothing to the Hun — except, perhaps, a shining 
target. Ship after ship that bore that symbol of 
mercy and of pain had been sunk. No longer did 
our navy dare to trust the Red Cross. It took 
every precaution it could take to protect the poor 
fellows who were going home to Blighty. 

As we made our way slowly in, through the 
crowded harbor, full of transports, of ammunition 
ships, of food carriers, of destroyers and small 
naval craft of all sorts, I began to be able to see 
more and more of what was afoot ashore. It was 
near noon; the day that had been chosen for my 
arrival in France was one of brilliant sunshine 
and a cloudless sky. And my eyes were drawn to 
other hospital ships that were waiting at the 
docks. Motor ambulances came dashing up, one 
after the other, in what seemed to me to be an end- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 133 

less stream. The pity of that sight ! It was as if 
I could peer through the intervening space and see 
the bandaged heads, the places where limbs had 
been, the steadfast gaze of the boys who were 
being carried up in stretchers. They had done 
their task, a great number of them ; they had given 
all that God would let them give to King and 
country. Life was left to them, to be sure; most 
of these boys were sure to live. 

But to what maimed and incomplete lives were 
they doomed ! The thousands who would be crip- 
ples always — blind, some of them, and helpless, 
dependent upon what others might choose or be 
able to do for them. It was then, in that moment, 
that an idea was born, vaguely, in my mind, of 
which I shall have much more to say later. 

There was beauty in that harbor of Boulogne. 
The sun gleamed against the chalk cliffs. It 
caught the wings of airplanes, flying high above 
us. But there was little of beauty in my mind's 
eye. That could see through the surface beauty 
of the scene and of the day to the grim, stark ugli- 
ness of war that lay beneath. 

I saw the ordered piles of boxes and supplies, 
the bright guns, mth the sun reflected from their 
barrels, dulled though these were to prevent that 
very thing. And I thought of the waste that was 
involved — of how all this vast product of industry 
was destined to be destroyed, as swiftly as might 
be, bringing no useful accomplishment with its 



134. A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

destruction — save, of course, that accomplishment 
which must be completed before any useful thing 
may be done again in this world. 

Then we went ashore, and I could scarcely be- 
lieve that we were indeed in France, that land 
which, friends though our nations are, is at heart 
and in spirit so different from my own country. 
Boulogne had ceased to be French, indeed. The 
port was like a bit of Britain picked up, carried 
across the Channel and transplanted successfully 
to a new resting-place. 

English was spoken everywhere — and much of 
it was the English of the cockney, innocent of the 
aitch, and redolent of that strange tongue. But it 
is no for me, a Scot, to speak of how any other 
man uses the King's English ! Well I ken it ! It 
was good to hear it — had there been a thought in 
my mind of being homesick, it would quickly have 
been dispelled. The streets rang to the tread of 
British soldiers; our uniform was everywhere. 
There were Frenchmen, too ; they were attached, 
many of them, for one reason and another, to the 
British forces. But most of them spoke English 
too. 

I had most care about the unloading of my 
cigarettes. It was a point of honor with me, by 
now, after the way my friends had joked me about 
them, to see that every last one of the *'fags" I 
had brought with me reached a British Tommy. So 
to them I gave my first care. Then I saw to the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 135 

unloading of my wee piano, and, having done so, 
was free to go with the other members of the 
Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour to the small 
hotel that was to be headquarters for all of us in 
Boulogne. 

Arrangements had to be made for my debut in 
France, and I can tell you that no professional en- 
gagement I have ever filled ever gave me half so 
much concern as this one! I have sung before 
many strange audiences, in all parts of the world, 
or nearly all. I have sung for folk who had no 
idea of what to expect from me, and have known 
that I must be at work from the moment of my 
first appearance on the stage to win them. But 
these audiences that I was to face here in France 
gave me more thought than any of them. I had so 
great a reason for wanting to suceed with 
them! 

And here, ye ken, I faced conditions that were 
harder than had ever fallen to my lot. I was not 
to have, most of the time, even the military thea- 
ters that had, in some cases, been built for the 
men behind the lines, where many actors and, in- 
deed, whole companies, from home had been ap- 
pearing. I could make no changes of costume. 
I would have no orchestra. Part of the time I 
would have my wee piano, but I reckoned on going 
to places where even that sma' thing could no fol- 
low me. 

But I had a good manager — the British army, 



136 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

no less ! It was the army that had arranged my 
booking. We were not left alone, not for a min- 
ute. I would not have you think that we were left 
to go around on our own, and as we pleased. 
Far from it! No sooner had we landed than 
Captain Roberts, D.S.O., told me, in a brief, sol- 
dierly way, that was also extremely businesslike, 
what sort of plans had been made for us. 

*'We have a number of big hospitals here," he 
said. ^'This is one of the important British 
bases, as you know, and it is one of those where 
many of our men are treated before they are sent 
home. So, since you are here, we thought you 
would want to give your first concerts to the 
wounded men here." 

So I learned that the opening of what you might 
call my engagement in the trenches was to be in 
hospitals. That was not new to me, and yet I was 
to find that there was a difference between a base 
hospital in France and the sort of hospitals I had 
seen so often at home. 

Nothing, indeed, was left to us. After Captain 
Roberts had explained matters, we met Captain 
Godfrey, who was to travel with us, and be our 
guide, our military mentor and our ruler. We 
understood that we must place ourselves under 
him, and under military discipline. No Tommy, 
indeed, was more under discipline than we had to 
be. But we did not chafe, civilians though we 
were. When you see the British army at work 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 137 

nothing is further from your thoughts than to 
criticize or to offer any suggestions. It knows its 
business, and does it, quietly and without fuss. 
But even Fritz has learned to be chary of getting 
in the way when the British army has made up its 
mind — and that is what he is there for, though I've 
no doubt that Fritz himself would give a pretty 
penny to be at home again, with peace de- 
clared. 

Captain Godfrey, absolute though his power 
over us was — he could have ordered us all home 
at a moment's notice — turned out to be a delight- 
ful young officer, who did everything in his power 
to make our way smooth and pleasant, and who 
was certainly as good a manager as I ever had or 
ever expect to have. He entered into the spirit of 
our tour, and it was plain to see that it would be 
a success from start to finish if it were within his 
power to make it so. He liked to call himself my 
manager, and took a great delight, indeed, in the 
whole experience. Well, it was a change for him, 
no doubt! 

I had brought a piano with me, but no accom- 
panist. That was not an oversight ; it was a mat- 
ter of deliberate choice. I had been told, before I 
left home, that I would have no difficulty in finding 
some one among the soldiers to accompany me. 
And that was true, as I soon found. In fact, as 
I was to learn later, I could have recruited a full 
orchestra among the Tommies, and I would have 



138 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

had in my band, too, musicians of fame and great 
ability, far above the average theater orchestra. 
Oh, you must go to France to learn how every art 
and craft in Britain has done its part ! 

Aye, every sort of artist and artisan, men of 
every profession and trade, can be found in the 
British army. It has taken them all, like some 
great melting pot, and made them soldiers. I 
think, indeed, there is no calling that you could 
name that would not yield you a master hand from 
the ranks of the British army. And I am not 
talking of the officers alone, but of the great mass 
of Tommies. And so when I told Captain God- 
frey I would be needing a good pianist to play my 
accompaniments, he just smiled. 

** Right you are!" he said. ".We'll turn one 
up for you in no time!" 

He had no doubts at all, and he was right. They 
found a lad called Johnson, a Yorkshireman, in a 
convalescent ward of one of the big hospitals. 
He was recovering from an illness he had incurred 
in the trenches, and was not quite ready to go 
back to active duty. But he was well enough to 
play for me, and delighted when he heard he might 
get the assignment. He was nervous lest he 
should not please me, and feared I might ask for 
another man. But when I ran over with him the 
songs I meant to sing I found he played the piano 
very well indeed, and had a knack for accompany- 
ing, too. There are good pianists, soloists, who 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 139 

are not good accompanists; it takes more than 
just the ability to play the piano to work with a 
singer, and especially with a singer like me. It 
is no straight ahead singing I do always, as you 
ken, perhaps. 

But I saw at once that Johnson and I would 
get along fine together, so everyone was pleased, 
and I went on and made my preparations with him 
for my first concert. That was to be in the Bou- 
logne Casino — center of the gayety of the resort 
in the old days, but now, for a long time, turned 
into a base hospital. 

They had played for high stakes there in the 
old days before the war. Thousands of dollars 
had changed hands in an hour there. But they 
were playing for higher stakes now ! They were 
playing for the lives and the health of men, and 
the hearts of the women at home in Britain who 
were bound up with them. In the old days men 
had staked their money against the turn of a card 
or the roll of the wheel. But now it was with 
Death they staked — and it was a mightier game 
than those old walls had ever seen before. 

The largest ward of the hospital was in what 
had been the Baccarat room, and it was there I 
held my first concert of the trench engagement. 
"When I appeared it was packed full. There were 
men on cots, lying still and helpless, bandaged to 
their very eyes. Some came limping in on their 
crutches; some were rolled in in chairs. It was 



140 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

a sad scene and an impressive one, and it went to 
my heart when I thought that my own poor laddie 
must have lain in just such a room — in this very 
one, perhaps. He had suffered as these men were 
suffering, and he had died — as some of these men 
for whom I was to sing would die. For there 
were men here w^ho would be patched up, pres- 
ently, and would go back. And for them there 
might be a next time — a next time when they 
would need no hospital. 

There was one thing about the place I liked. 
It was so clean and white and spotless. All the 
garish display, the paint and tawdry finery, of the 
old gambling days, had gone. It was restful, 
now, and though there was the hospital smell, it 
was a clean smell. And the men looked as though 
they had wonderful care. Indeed, I knew they 
had that; I knew that everything that could be 
done to ease their state was being done. And 
every face I saw was brave and cheerful, though 
the skin of many and many a lad was stretched 
tight over his bones with the pain he had known, 
and there was a look in their eyes, a look with 
no repining in it, or complaint, but with the evi- 
dences of a terrible pain, bravely suffered, that 
sent the tears starting to my eyes more than 
once. 

It was much as it had been in the many hospi- 
tals I had visited in Britain, and yet it was differ- 
ent^ too. I felt that I was really at the front. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 14.1 

Later I came to realize how far from the real front 
I actually was at Boulogne, but then I knew no 
better. 

I had chosen my programme carefully. It was 
made up of songs altogether. I had had enough 
experience in hospitals and camps by now to have 
learned what soldiers liked best, and I had no 
doubt at all that it was just songs. And best of 
all they liked the old love songs, and the old songs 
of Scotland — tender, crooning melodies, that 
would help to carry them back, in memory, to their 
hames and, if they had them, to the lassies of their 
dreams. It was no sad, lugubrious songs they 
wanted. But a note of wistful tenderness they 
liked. That was true of sick and wounded, and of 
the hale and hearty too — and it showed that, 
though they were soldiers, they were just humans 
like the rest of us, for all the great and super- 
human things they ha' done out there in 
France. 

Not every actor and artist who has tried to help 
in the hospitals has fully understood the men he 
or she wanted to please. They meant well, every 
one, but some were a wee bit unfortunate in the 
way they went to work. There is a story that is 
told of one of our really great serious actors. He 
is serious minded, always, on the stage and off, 
and very, very dignified. But some folk went to 
him and asked him would he no do his bit to cheer 
up the puir laddies in a hospital I 



142 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

He never thought of refusing — and I would no 
have you think I am sneering at the man ! His in- 
tentions were of the best. 

*'0f course, I do not sing or dance," he said, 
drawing down his lip. And the look in his eyes 
showed what he thought of such of us as had de- 
scended to such low ways of pleasing the public 
that paid to see us and to hear us : * ' But I shall 
very gladly do something to bring a little diver- 
sion into the sad lives of the poor boys in the hos- 
pitals." 

It was a stretcher audience that he had. That 
means a lot of boys who had to lie in bed to hear 
him. They needed cheering. And that great 
actor, with all his good intentions could think of 
nothing more fitting than to stand up before 
them and begin to recite, in a sad, elocu- 
tionary tone, Longfellow's **The Wreck of the 
Hesperus!" 

He went on, and his voice gained power. He 
had come to the third stanza, or the fourth, maybe, 
when a command rang out through the ward. It 
was one that had been heard many and many a 
time in France, along the trenches. It came from 
one of the beds. 

''To cover, men!" came the order. 

It rang out through the ward, in a hoarse voice. 
And on the word every man's head popped under 
the bedclothes! And the great actor, astonished 
beyond measure, was left there, reciting away to 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 143 

shaking mounds of bedclothes that entrenched his 
hearers from the sound of his voice ! 

Well, I had heard yon tale. I do no think I 
should ever have risked a similar fate by making 
the same sort of mistake, but I profited by hearing 
it, and I always remembered it. And there was 
another thing. I never thought, when I was go- 
ing to sing for soldiers, that I was doing some- 
thing for them that should make them glad to 
listen to me, no matter what I chose to sing for 
them. 

I always thought, instead, that here was an au- 
dience that had paid to hear me in the dearest coin 
in all the world — their legs and arms, their health 
and happiness. Oh, they had paid! They had 
not come in on free passes! Their tickets had 
cost them dear — dearer than tickets for the thea- 
ter had ever cost before. I owed them more than 
I could ever pay — my own future, and my free- 
dom, and the right and the chance to go on living 
in my own country free from the threat and the 
menace of the Hun. It was for me to please those 
boys when I sang for them, and to make such an 
effort as no ordinary audience had ever heard 
from me. 

They had made a little platform to serve as a 
stage for me. There was room for me and for 
Johnson, and for the wee piano. And so I sang 
for them, and they showed me from the start that 
j;hey were pleased. Those who could, clapped, 



144 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

and all cheered, and after each song there was a 
great pounding of crutches on the floor. It was 
an inspiring sound and a great sight, sad though 
it was to see and to hear. 

When I had done I went aboot amang the men, 
shaking hands with such as could gie me their 
hands, and saying a word or two to all of them. 
Directly in front of the platform there lay a 
wounded Scots soldier, and all through my concert 
he watched me most intently; he never took his 
eyes off me. When I had sung my last song he 
beckoned to me feebly, and I went to him, and 
bent over to listen to him. 

**Eh, Harry, man," he said, "will ye be doin' 
me a favor?" 

"Aye, that I will, if I can," I told him. 

"It's to ask the doctor will I no be gettin' better 
soon. Because, Harry, mon, I've but the one de- 
sire left — and that's to be in at the finish of yon 
fight!" 

I was to give one more concert in Boulogne, that 
night. That was more cheerful, and it was differ- 
ent, again, from anything I had done or known be- 
fore. There was a convalescent camp, about two 
miles from town, high up on the chalk cliffs. And 
this time my theater was a Y.M.C.A. hut. But 
do not let the name hut deceive ye! I had an 
audience of two thousand men that nicht ! It was 
all the "hut" would hold, with tight squeezing. 
And what a roaring, wild crowd that was, to be 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 145 

sure ! They sang with me, and they cheered and 
clapped until I thought that hut would be needing 
a new roof! 

I had to give over at last, for I was tired, and 
needed sleep. We had our orders. The Rever- 
end Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour was to start for 
Vimy Ridge at six o'clock next morning! 



CHAPTER XIY 

WE were up next morning before daybreak. 
But I did not feel as if I were getting up 
early. Indeed, it was quite the re- 
verse. All about us was a scene of such activity 
that I felt as if I had been lying in bed uncon- 
sciously long — as if I were the laziest man in all 
that busy town. Troops were setting out, board- 
ing military trains. Cheery, jovial fellows they 
were — the same lads, some of them, who had 
crossed the Channel with me, and many others 
who had come in later. Oh, it is a steady stream 
of men and supplies, indeed, that goes across the 
narrow sea to France ! 

Motor trucks — they were calling them camions, 
after the French fashion, because it was a shorter 
and a simpler word — fairly swarmed in the 
streets. Guns rolled ponderously along. It was 
not military pomp we saw. Indeed, I saw little 
enough of that in France. It was only the uni- 
forms and the guns that made me realize that this 
was war. The activity was more that of a busy, 
bustling factory town. It was not English, and 
it was not French. I think it made me think 
more of an American city. War, I cannot tell you 
often enough, is a great business, a vast industry, 

146 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 147 

in these days. Someone said, and he was right, 
that they did not win victories any more — that 
they manufactured them, as all sorts of goods are 
manufactured. Digging, and building — that is 
the great work of modern war. 

Our preparations, being in the hands of Captain 
Godfrey and the British army, were few and 
easily made. Two great, fast army motor cars 
had been put at the disposal of the Reverend 
Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour, and when we went out 
to get into them and make our start it was just 
a problem of stowing away all we had to carry 
with us. 

The first car was a passenger car. Each motor 
had a soldier as chauffeur. I and the Reverend 
George Adam rode in the tonneau of the leading 
car, and Captain Godfrey, our manager and guide, 
sat with the driver, in front. That was where he 
belonged, and where, being a British officer, he 
naturally wanted to be. They have called our 
officers reckless, and said that they risked their 
lives too freely. "Weel — I dinna ken! I am no 
soldier. But I know what a glorious tradition the 
British officer has — and I know, too, how his men 
follow him. They know, do the laddies in the 
ranks, that their officers will never ask them to 
go anywhere or do anything they would shirk 
themselves — and that makes for a spirit that you 
could not esteem too highly. 

It was the second car that was our problem. 



148 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

We put Johnson, my accompanist, in the tonneau 
first, and then we covered him with cigarettes. It 
was a problem to get them stowed away, and 
when we had accomplished the task, finally, there 
was not much of Johnson to be seen! He was 
covered and surrounded with cigarettes, but he 
was snug, and he looked happy and comfortable, 
as he grinned at us — his face was about all of him 
that we could see. Hogge rode in front with the 
driver of that car, and had more room, so, than 
he would have had in the tonneau, where, as a 
passenger and a guest, he really belonged. The 
wee bit piano was lashed to the grid of the second 
car. And I give you my word it looked like a 
gypsy's wagon more than like one of the neat 
cars of the British army! 

Weel, all was ready in due time, and it was just 
six o'clock when we set off. There was a thing 
I noted again and again. The army did things 
on time in France. If we were to start at a cer- 
tain time we always did. Nothing ever happened 
to make us unpunctual. 

It was a glorious morning! We went roaring 
out of Boulogne on a road that was as hard and 
smooth as a paved street in London despite all 
the terrific traffic it had borne since the war made 
Boulogne a British base. And there were no 
speed limits here. So soon as the cars were tuned 
up we went along at the highest speed of which 
the cars were capable. Our soldier drivers knew 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 149 

their business ; only the picked men were assigned 
to the driving of these cars, and speed was one 
of the things that was wanted of them. Much 
may hang on the speed of a motor car in France. 

But, fast as we traveled, we did not go too fast 
for me to enjoy the drive and the sights and 
sounds that were all about us. They were oddly 
mixed. Some were homely and familiar, and 
some were so strange that I could not give over 
wondering at them. The motors made a great 
noise, but it was not too loud for me to hear larks 
singing in the early morning. All the world was 
green with the early sun upon it, lighting up 
every detail of a strange countryside. There was 
a soft wind, a gentle, caressing wind, that stirred 
the leaves of the trees along the road. 

But not for long could we escape the touch of 
war. That grim etcher was at work upon the road 
and the whole countryside. As we went on we 
were bound to move more slowly, because of the 
congestion of the traffic. Never was Piccadilly or 
Fifth Avenue more crowded with motors at the 
busiest hour of the day than was that road. As 
we passed through villages or came to cross roads 
we saw military police, directing traffic, precisely 
as they do at busy intersections of crowded streets 
in London or New York. 

But the traffic along that road was not the 
traffic of the cities. Here were no ladies, gor- 
geously clad, reclining in their luxurious, deeply 



150 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

upholstered cars. Here were no footmen and 
chauffeurs in livery. Ah, they wore a livery — 
aye! But it was the livery of glory — the khaki 
of the King! Generals and high officers passed 
us, bowling along, lolling in their cars, taking 
their few brief minutes or half hours of ease, 
smoking and talking. They corresponded to the 
limousines and landaulets of the cities. And 
there were wagons from the shops — great trucks, 
carrying supplies, going along at a pace that 
racked their engines and their bodies, and that 
boded disaster to whoever got in their way. But 
no one did — there was no real confusion here, 
despite the seeming madness of the welter of 
traffic that we saw. 

What a traffic that was! And it was all the 
traffic of the carnage we were nearing. It was a 
marvelous and an impressive panorama of force 
and of destruction that we saw — it was being con- 
stantly unrolled before my wondering eyes as we 
traveled along the road out of old Boulogne. 

At first all the traffic was going our way. Some- 
times there came a warning shriek from behind, 
and everything drew to one side to make room for 
a dispatch rider on a motor cycle. These had the 
right of way. Sir Douglas Haig himself, were he 
driving along, would see his driver turn out to 
make way for one of those shrieking motor bikes ! 
The rule is absolute — everything makes way for 
them. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 151 

But it was not long before a tide of traffic began 
to meet us, flowing back toward Boulogne. There 
was a double stream then, and I wondered how 
collisions and traffic jams of all sorts could be 
avoided. I do not know yet; I only know that 
there is no trouble. Here were empty trucks, 
speeding back for new loads. And some there 
were that carried all sorts of wreckage — the flot- 
sam and jetsam cast up on the safe shores behind 
the front by the red tide of war. Nothing is 
thrown away out there ; nothing is wasted. Great 
piles of discarded shoes are brought back to be 
made over. They are as good as new when they 
come back from the factories where they are 
worked over. Indeed, the men told me they were 
better than new, because they were less trying to 
their feet, and did not need so much breaking in. 

Men go about, behind the front, and after a bat- 
tle, picking up everything that has been thrown 
away. Everything is sorted and gone over with 
the utmost care. Rifles that have been thrown 
away or dropped when men were wounded or 
killed, bits of uniforms, bayonets — everything is 
saved. Reclamation is the order of the day. 
There is waste enough in war that cannot be 
avoided; the British army sees to it that there 
is none that is avoidable. 

But it was not only that sort of wreckage, that 
sort of driftwood that was being carried back to 
be made over. Presently we began to see great 



152 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

motor ambulances coming along, each with a Red 
Cross painted glaringly on its side — though that 
paint was wasted or worse, for there is no target 
the Hun loves better, it would seem, than the great 
red cross of mercy. And in them, as we knew, 
there was the most pitiful wreckage of all — the 
human wreckage of the war. 

In the wee sma' hours of the morn they bear 
the men back who have been hit the day before 
and during the night. They go back to the field 
dressing stations and the hospitals just behind the 
front, to be sorted like the other wreckage. Some 
there are who cannot be moved further, at first, 
but must be cared for under fire, lest they die on 
the way. But all whose wounds are such that they 
can safely be moved go back in the ambulances, 
first to the great base hospitals, and then, when 
possible, on the hospital ships to England. 

Sometimes, but not often, we passed troops 
marching along the road. They swung along. 
They marched easily, with the stride that could 
carry them furthest with the least effort. They 
did not look much like the troops I used to see in 
London. They did not have the snap of the Cold- 
stream Guards, marching through Green Park in 
the old days. But they looked like business and 
like war. They looked like men who had a job 
of work to do and meant to see it through. 

They had discipline, those laddies, but it was 
not the old, stiff discipline of the old army. That 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 153 

is a thing of a day that is dead and gone. Now, 
as we passed along the side of the road that 
marching troops always leave clear, there was 
always a series of hails for me. 

"Hello, Harry!" I would hear. 

And I would look back, and see grinning Tom- 
mies waving their hands to me. It was a flatter- 
ing experience, I can tell you, to be recognized 
like that along that road. It was like running into 
old friends in a strange town where you have 
come thinking you know no one at all. 

We were about thirty miles out of Boulogne 
when there was a sudden explosion underneath 
the car, followed by a sibilant sound that I knew 
only too well. 

* ' Hello — a puncture ! ' ' said Godfrey, and smiled 
as he turned around. We drew up to the side of 
the road, and both chauffeurs jumped out and 
went to work on the recalcitrant tire. The rest of 
us sat still, and gazed around us at the fields. I 
was glad to have a chance to look quietly about. 
The fields stretched out, all emerald green, in all 
directions to the distant horizon, sapphire blue 
that glorious morning. And in the fields, here and 
there, were the bent, stooped figures of old men 
and women. They were carrying on, quietly. 
Husbands and sons and brothers had gone to war ; 
all the young men of France had gone. These 
were left, and they were seeing to the perform- 
ance of the endless cycle of duty. France would 



154* A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

survive ; the Hun could not crush her. Here was 
a spirit made manifest — a spirit different in 
degree but not in kind from the spirit of my ain 
Britain. It brought a lump into my throat to see 
them, the old men and the women, going so pa-' 
tiently and quietly about their tasks. 

It was very quiet. Faint sounds came to us; 
there was a distant rumbling, like the muttering 
of thunder on a summer's night, when the day 
has been hot and there are low, black clouds lying 
against the horizon, with the flashes of the light- 
ning playing through them. But that I had come 
already not to heed, though I knew full well, by 
now, what it was and what it meant. For a little 
space the busy road had become clear; there was 
a long break in the traffic. 

I turned to Adam and to Captain Godfrey. 

"I'm thinking here's a fine chance for a bit of 
a rehearsal in the open air," I said. "I'm not 
used to singing so — mayhap it would be well to 
try my voice and see will it carry as it should." 

"Right oh!" said Godfrey. 

And so we dug Johnson out from his snug bar- 
ricade of cigarettes, that hid him as an emplace- 
ment hides a gun, and we unstrapped my wee 
piano, and set it up in the road. Johnson tried 
the piano, and then we began. 

I think I never sang with less restraint in all my 
life than I did that quiet morning on the Boulogne 
road. I raised my voice and let it have its will. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 156 

And I felt my spirits rising with the lilt of the 
melody. My voice rang out, full and free, and 
it must have carried far and wide across the 
fields. 

My audience was small at first — Captain God- 
frey, Hogge, Adam, and the two chauffeurs, work- 
ing away, and having more trouble with the tire 
than they had thought at first they would — which 
is the way of tires, as every man knows who owns 
a car. But as they heard my songs the old men 
and women in the fields straightened up to listen. 
They stood wondering, at first, and then, slowly, 
they gave over their work for a space, and came 
to gather round me and to listen. 

It must have seemed strange to them ! Indeed, 
it must have seemed strange to anyone had they 
seen and heard me ! There I was, with Johnson 
at my piano, like some wayside tinker setting up 
his cart and working at his trade ! But I did not 
care for appearances — not a whit. For the mo- 
ment I was care free, a wandering minstrel, like 
some troubadour of old, care free and happy in 
my song. I forgot the black shadow under which 
we all lay in that smiling land, the black shadow 
of war in which I sang. 

It delighted me to see those old peasants and 
to study their faces, and to try to win them with 
my song. They could not understand a word I 
sang, and yet I saw the smiles breaking out over 
their wrinkled faces, and it made me proud and 



156 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

happy. For it was plain that I was reaching 
them — that I was able to throw a bridge over the 
gap of a strange tongue and an alien race. When 
I had done and it was plain I meant to sing no 
more they clapped me. 

** There's a hand for yon, Harry," said Adam, 

''Aye — and I'm proud of it!" I told him for 
reply. 

I was almost sorry when I saw that the two 
chauffeurs had finished their repairs and were 
ready to go on. But I told them to lash the piano 
back in its place, and Johnson prepared to climb 
gingerly back among his cigarettes. But just then 
something happened that I had not expected. 

There was a turn in the road just beyond us 
that hid its continuation from us. And around the 
bend now there came a company of soldiers. Not 
neat and well-appointed soldiers these. Ah, no! 
They were fresh from the trenches, on their way 
back to rest. The mud and grime of the trenches 
were upon them. They were tired and weary, and 
they carried all their accoutrements and packs 
with them. Their boots were heavy with mud. 
And they looked bad, and many of them shaky. 
Most of these men, Godfrey told me after a glance 
at them, had been ordered back to hospital for 
minor ailments. They were able to march, but not 
much more. 

They were the first men I had seen in such a 
case. They looked bad enough, but Godfrey said 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 157 

they were happy enough. Some of them would 
get leave for Blighty, and be home, in a few days, 
to see their families and their girls. And they 
eame swinging along in fine style, sick and tired 
as they were, for the thought of where they were 
going cheered them and helped to keep them 
going. 

A British soldier, equipped for the trenches, on 
his way in or out, has quite a load to carry. He 
has his pack, and his emergency ration, and his 
entrenching tools, and extra clothing that he needs 
in bad weather in the trenches, to say nothing of 
his ever-present rifle. And the sight of them 
made me realize for the first time the truth that 
lay behind the jest in a story that is one of 
Tommy's favorites. 

A child saw a soldier in heavy marching order. 
She gazed at him in wide-eyed wonder. He was 
not her idea of what a soldier should look like. 

''Mother," she asked, '' what is a soldier for?" 

The mother gazed at the man. And then she 
smiled. 

''A soldier," she answered, ''is to hang things 
on." 

They eyed me very curiously as they came 
along, those sick laddies. They couldn't seem to 
understand what I was doing there, but their dis- 
cipline held them. They were in charge of a 
young lieutenant with one star — a second lieu- 
tenant. I learned later that he was a long way 



158 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

from being a well man himself. So I stopped him. 

''Would your men like to hear a few songs, 
lieutenant?" I asked him. 

He hesitated. He didn't quite understand, and 
he wasn't a bit sure what his duty was in the cir- 
cumstances. He glanced at Godfrey, and Godfrey 
smiled at him as if in encouragement. 

**It's very good of you, I'm sure," he said, 
slowly. "Fallout!" 

So the men fell out, and squatted there, along 
the wayside. At once discipline was relaxed. 
Their faces were a study as the wee piano was 
set up again, and Johnson, in uniform, of course 
sat down and trued a chord or two. And then 
suddenly something happened that broke the ice. 
Just as I stood up to sing a loud voice broke the 
silence. 

*'Lor' love us!" one of the men cried, *'if it 
ain't old 'Arry Lauder!" 

There was a stir of interest at once. I spotted 
the owner of the voice. It was a shriveled up lit- 
tle chap, with a weazened face that looked like a 
sun-dried apple. He was showing all his teeth in 
a grin at me, and he was a typical little cockney 
of the sort all Londoners know well. 

*'Go it, 'Arry!" he shouted, shrilly. **Many*s 
the time h' I've 'eard you at the old Shoreditch!" 

So I went it as well as I could, and I never did 
have a more appreciative audience. My little 
cockney friend seemed to take a particular per- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 159 



sonal pride in me. I think he thought he had 
found me, and that he was, in an odd way, respon- 
sible for my success with his mates. And so he 
was especially glad when they cheered me and 
thanked me as they did. 

My concert didn't last long, for we had to be 
getting on, and the company of sick men had just 
so much time, too, to reach their destination — 
Boulogne, whence we had set out. When it was 
over I said good-by to the men, and shook hands 
with particular warmth with the little cockney. 
It wasn't every day I was likely to meet a man 
who had often heard me at the old Shoreditch! 
After we had stowed Johnson and the piano away 
again, with a few less cigarettes, now, to get in 
Johnson's way, we started, and as long as we 
were in sight the little cockney and I were wav- 
ing to one another. 

I took some of the cigarettes into the car I was 
in now. And as we sped along we were again in 
the thick of the great British war machine. Motor 
trucks and ambulances were more frequent than 
ever, and it was a common occurrence now to pass 
soldiers, marching in both directions — to the 
front and away from it. There was always some- 
one to recognize me and start a volley of *^ Hello, 
Harrys" coming my way, and I answered every 
greeting, you may be sure, and threw cigarettes 
to go with my ''Helios." 

Aye, I was glad I had brought the cigarettes ! 



160 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

They seemed to be even more welcome than I had 
hoped they would be, and I only wondered how 
long the supply would hold out, and if I would be 
able to get more if it did not. So Johnson, little 
by little, was getting more room, as I called for 
more and more of the cigarettes that walled him 
in in his tonneau. 

About noon, as we drove through a little town, 
I saw, for the first time, a whole flock of airplanes 
riding the sky. They were swooping about like 
lazy hawks, and a bonnie sight they were. I drew 
a long breath when I saw them, and turned to my 
friend Adam. 

''Well," I said, *'I think we're coming to it, 
now!" 

I meant the front — the real, British front. 
Suddenly, at a sharp order from Captain God- 
frey, our cars stopped. He turned around to us, 
and grinned, very cheerfully. 

"Gentlemen," he said, very calmly, "we'll stop 
here long enough to put on our steel helmets. ' ' 

He said it just as he might have said: "Well, 
here's where we will stop for tea." 

It meant no more than that to him. But for me 
it meant many things. It meant that at last I was 
really to be under fire; that I was going into 
danger. I was not really frightened yet ; you have 
to see danger, and know just what it is, and appre- 
ciate exactly its character, before you can be 
frightened. But I had imagination enough to 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 161' 

know what that order meant, and to have a queer 
feeling as I donned the steel helmet. It was less 
uncomfortable than I had expected it to be — 
lighter, and easier to wear. The British trench 
helmets are beautifully made, now; as in every 
other phase of the war and its work they repre- 
sent a constant study for improvement, lightening. 

But, even had it not been for the warning that 
was implied in Captain Godfrey's order, I should 
soon have understood that we had come into a new 
region. For a long time now the noise of the guns 
had been different. Instead of being like distant 
thunder it was a much nearer and louder sound. 
It was a steady, throbbing roar now. 

And, at intervals, there came a different sound; 
a sound more individual, that stood out from the 
steady roar. It was as if the air were being 
cracked apart by the blow of some giant hammer. 
I knew what it was. Aye, I knew. You need no 
man to tell you what it is — the explosion of a 
great shell not so far from you ! 

Nor was it our ears alone that told us what was 
going on. Ever and anon, now, ahead of us, as 
we looked at the fields, we saw a cloud of dirt rise 
up. That was where a shell struck. And in the 
fields about us, now, we could see holes, full of 
water, as a rule, and mounds of dirt that did not 
look as if shovels and picks had raised them. 

It surprised me to see that the peasants were 
still at work, I spoke to Godfrey about that. 



162 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

''The Frencli peasants don't seem to know what 
it is to be afraid of shell-fire," he said. "They 
go only when we make them. It is the same on 
the French front. They will cling to a farm- 
house in the zone of fire until they are ordered 
out, no matter how heavily it may be shelled. 
They are splendid folk ! The Germans can never 
beat a race that has such folk as that behind its 
battle line." 

I could well believe him. I have seen no sight 
along the whole front more quietly impressive 
than the calm, impassive courage of those French 
peasants. They know they are right! It is no 
Kaiser, no war lord, who gives them courage. It 
is the knowledge and the consciousness that they 
are suffering in a holy cause, and that, in the end, 
the right and the truth must prevail. Their own 
fate, whatever may befall them, does not matter. 
France must go on and shall, and they do their 
humble part to see that she does and shall. 

Solemn thoughts moved me as we drove on. 
Here there had been real war and fighting. Now 
I saw a country blasted by shell-fire and wrecked 
by the contention of great armies. And I knew 
that I was coming to soil watered by British 
blood; to rows of British graves; to soil that shall 
be forever sacred to the memory of the Britons, 
from Britain and from over the seas, who died 
and fought upon it to redeem it from the Hun. 

I had no mind to talk, to ask questions. For 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 163 

the time I was content to be with my own thoughts, 
that were evoked by the historic ground through 
which we passed. My heart was heavy with grief 
and with the memories of my boy that came flood- 
ing it, but it was lightened, too, by other thoughts. 
And always, as we sped on, there was the 
thunder of the guns. Always there were the 
bursting shells, and the old bent peasants paying 
no heed to them. Always there were the circling 
airplanes, far above us, like hawks against the 
deep blue of the sky. And always we came nearer 
and nearer to Vimy Ridge — that deathless name 
in the history of Britain. 



CHAPTER XV 

NOW Captain Godfrey leaned back and 
smiled at us. 
"There's Vimy Ridge,*' he said. And 
he pointed. 

"Yon?" I asked, in astonishment. 

I was almost disappointed. We had heard so 
much, in Britain and in Scotland, of Vimy Ridge. 
The name of that famous hill had been written im- 
perishably in history. But to look at it first, to 
see it as I saw it, it was no hill at all ! My eyes 
were used to the mountains of my ain Scotland, 
and this great ridge was but a tiny thing beside 
them. But then I began to picture the scene as it 
had been the day the Canadians stormed it and 
won for themselves the glory of all the ages. I 
pictured it blotted from sight by the hell of shells 
bursting over it, and raking its slopes as the Cana- 
dians charged upward. I pictured it crowned by 
defenses and lined by such of the Huns as had sur- 
vived the artillery battering, spitting death and 
destruction from their machine guns. And then I 
saw it as I should, and I breathed deep at the 
thought of the men who had faced death and hell 
to win that height and plant the flag of Britain 
upon it. Aye, and the Stars and Stripes of 
America, too ! 

164 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 165 

Ye ken that tale! There was an American who 
had enlisted, like so many of his fellow countrymen 
before America was in the war, in the Canadian 
forces. The British army was full of men who 
had told a white lie to don the King's uniform. 
Men there are in the British army who winked as 
they enlisted and were told: ''You'll be a Cana- 
dian?" 

"Aye, aye, I'm a Canadian," they'd say. 

* ' From what province ? " 

"The province of Kentucky — or New York — 
or California!" 

Well, there was a lad, one of them, was in the 
first wave at Vimy Ridge that April day in 1917. 
'Twas but a few days before that a wave of the 
wildest cheering ever heard had run along the 
whole Western front, so that Fritz in his trenches 
wondered what was up the noo. Well, he has 
learned, since then! He has learned, despite his 
Kaiser and his officers, and his lying newspapers, 
that that cheer went up when the news came that 
America had declared war upon Germany. And 
so, it was a few days after that cheer was heard 
that the Canadians leaped over the top and went 
for Vimy Ridge, and this young fellow from 
America had a wee silken flag. He spoke to his 
officer. 

"Now that my own country's in the war, sir," 
he said, "I'd like to carry her flag with me when 
we go over the top. Wrapped around me, sir " 



166 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

''Go it!" said the officer. 

And so he did. And he was one of those who 
won through and reached the top. There he was 
wounded, but he had carried the Stars and Stripes 
with him to the crest. 

Vimy Ridge ! I could see it. And above it, and 
beyond it, now, for the front had been carried on, 
far beyond, within what used to be the lines of the 
Hun, the airplanes circled. Very quiet and lazy 
they seemed, for all I knew of their endless activ- 
ity and the precious work that they were doing. 
I could see how the Huns were shelling them. 
You would see an airplane hovering, and then, 
close by, suddenly, a ball of cottony white smoke. 
Shrapnel that was, bursting, as Fritz tried to get 
the range with an anti-aircraft gun — an Archie, 
as the Tommies call them. But the plane would 
pay no heed, except, maybe, to dip a bit or climb 
a little higher to make it harder for the Hun. It 
made me think of a man shrugging his shoulders, 
calmly and imperturbably, in the face of some 
great peril, and I wanted to cheer. I had some 
wild idea that maybe he would hear me, and know 
that someone saw him, and appreciated what he 
was doing — someone to whom it was not an old 
story ! But then I smiled at my own thought. 

Now it was time for us to leave the cars and 
get some exercise. Our steel helmets were on, 
and glad we were of them, for shrapnel was 
bursting nearby sometimes, although most of the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 167 

shells were big fellows, that buried themselves in 
the ground and then exploded. Fritz wasn't 
doing much casual shelling the noo, though. He 
was saving his fire until his observers gave him a 
real target to aim at. But that was no so often, 
for our airplanes were in command of the air then, 
and his flyers got precious little chance to guide 
his shooting. Most of his hits were due to 
luck. 

"Spread out a bit as you go along here," said 
Captain Godfrey. " If a crump lands close by 
there 's no need of all of us going ! If we 're spread 
out a bit, you see, a shell might get one and leave 
the rest of us." 

It sounded cold blooded, but it was not. To men 
who have lived at the front everything comes to 
be taken as a matter of course. Men can get used 
to anything — this war has proved that again, if 
there was need of proving it. And I came to 
understand that, and to listen to things I heard 
with different ears. But those are things no one 
can tell you of; you must have been at the front 
yourself to understand all that goes on there, both 
in action and in the minds of men. 

We obeyed Captain Godfrey readily enough, as 
you can guess. And so I was alone as I walked 
toward Vimy Ridge. It looked just like a lumpy 
excrescence on the landscape; at hame we would 
not even think of it as a foothill. But as I neared 
it, and as I rememered all it stood for, I thought 



168 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

that in the atlas of history it would loom higher 
than the highest peak of the great Himalaya 
range. 

Beyond the ridge, beyond the actual line of the 
trenches, miles away, indeed, were the German 
batteries from which the shells we heard and saw 
as they burst were coming. I was glad of my hel- 
met, and of the cool assurance of Captain God- 
frey. I felt that we were as safe, in his hands, as 
men could be in such a spot. 

It was not more than a mile we had to cover, 
but it was rough going, bad going. Here war had 
had its grim way without interruption. The face 
of the earth had been cut to pieces. Its surface 
had been smashed to a pulpy mass. The ground 
had been plowed, over and over, by a rain of 
shells — German and British. What a planting 
there had been that spring, and what a plowing! 
A harvest of death it had been that had been sown 
— and the reaper had not waited for summer to 
come, and the Harvest moon. He had passed that 
way with his scythe, and where we passed now he 
had taken his terrible, his horrid, toll. 

At the foot of the ridge I saw men fighting for 
the first time — actually fighting, seeking to hurt 
an enemy. It was a Canadian battery we saw, and 
it was firing, steadily and methodically, at the 
Huns. Up to now I had seen only the vast indus- 
trial side of war, its business and its labor. Now 
I was, for the first time, in touch with actual fight- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 169 

ing. I saw the guns belching death and destruc- 
tion, destined for men miles away. It was high 
angle fire, of course, directed by observers in the 
air. 

But even that seemed part of the sheer, factory- 
like industry of war. There was no passion, no 
coming to grips in hot blood, here. Orders were 
given by the battery commander and the other 
officers as the foreman in a machine shop might 
give them. And the busy artillerymen worked like 
laborers, too, clearing their guns after a salvo, 
loading them, bringing up fresh supplies of am- 
munition. It was all methodical, all a matter of 
routine. 

' ' Good artillery work is like that, ' ' said Captain 
Godfrey, when I spoke to him about it. ''It's a 
science. It's all a matter of the higher mathe- 
matics. Everything is worked out to half a dozen 
places of decimals. We've eliminated chance and 
guesswork just as far as possible from modern 
artillery actions." 

But there was something about it all that wac 
disappointing, at first sight. It let you down a bit. 
Only the guns themselves kept up the tradition. 
Only they were acting as they should, and show- 
ing a proper passion and excitement. I could hear 
them growling ominously, like dogs locked in their 
kennel when they would be loose and about, and 
hunting. And then they would spit, angrily. They 
inflamed my imagination, did those guns; they 



170 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

satisfied me and my old-fashioned conception of 
war and fighting, more than anything else that I 
had seen had done. And it seemed to me that 
after they had spit out their deadly charge they 
wiped their muzzles with red tongues of flame, 
satisfied beyond all words or measure with what 
they had done. 

We were rising now, as we walked, and getting 
a better view of the country that lay beyond. 
And so I came to understand a little better the 
value of a height even so low and insignificant as 
Vimy Ridge in that flat country. While the Ger- 
mans held it they could overlook all our positions, 
and all the advantage of natural placing had been 
to them. Now, thanks to the Canadians, it was 
our turn, and we were looking down. 

Weel, I was under fire. There was no doubt 
about it. There was a droning over us now, like 
the noise bees make, or many flies in a small room 
on a hot summer's day. That was the drone of 
the German shells. There was a little freshening 
of the artillery activity on both sides, Captain 
Godfrey said, as if in my honor. When one side 
increased its fire the other always answered — 
played copy cat. There was no telling, ye ken, 
when such an increase of fire might not be the 
first sign of an attack. And neither side took 
more chances than it must. 

I had known, before I left Britain, that I would 
come under fire. And I had wondered what it 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 171 

would be like. I had expected to be afraid, nerv- 
ous. Brave men had told me, one after another, 
that every man is afraid when he first comes under 
fire. And so I had wondered how I would be, and 
I had expected to be badly scared and extremely 
nervous. Now I could hear that constant dron- 
ing of shells, and, in the distance, I could see, very 
often, powdery squirts of smoke and dirt along 
the ground, where our shells were striking, so 
that I knew I had the Hun lines in sight. 

And I can truthfully say that, that day, at least, 
I felt no great fear or nervousness. Later I did, 
as I shall tell you, but that day one overpowering 
emotion mastered every other. It was a desire for 
vengeance! Yon were the Huns — the men who 
had killed my boy. They were almost within my 
reach. And as I looked at them there in their 
lines a savage desire possessed me, almost over- 
whelmed me, indeed, that made me want to rush 
to those guns and turn them to my own mad pur- 
pose of vengeance. 

It was all I could do, I tell you, to restrain 
myself — to check that wild, almost ungovernable 
impulse to rush to the guns and grapple with 
them myself — myself fire them at the men who 
had killed my boy. I wanted to fight ! I wanted 
to fight with my two hands — to tear and rend, and 
have the consciousness that I flash back, like a 
telegraph message from my satiated hands to my 
eager brain that was spurring me on. 



172 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

But that was not to be. I knew it, and I grew 
calmer, presently. The roughness of the going 
helped me to do that, for it took all a man's wits 
and faculties to grope his way along the path we 
were following now. Indeed, it was no path at 
all that led us to the Pimple — the topmost point 
of Vimy Ridge, which changed hands half a dozen 
times in the few minutes of bloody fighting that 
had gone on here during the great attack. 

The ground was absolutely riddled with shell 
holes here. There must have been a mine of metal 
underneath us. What path there was zigzagged 
around. It had been worn to such smoothness as 
it possessed since the battle, and it evaded the 
worst craters by going around them. My mad- 
ness was passed now, and a great sadness had 
taken its place. For here, where I was walking, 
men had stumbled up with bullets and shells rain- 
ing about them. At every step I trod ground that 
must have been the last resting-place of some 
Canadian soldier, who had died that I might climb 
this ridge in a safety so immeasurably greater 
than his had been. 

If it was hard for us to make this climb, if we 
stumbled as we walked, what had it been for them? 
Our breath came hard and fast — how had it been 
with them? Yet they had done it! They had 
stormed the ridge the Huns had proudly called 
impregnable. They had taken, in a swift rush, 
that nothing could stay, a position the Kaiser '^ 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 173 



generals had assured him would never be 
lost — could never be reached by mortal 
troops. 

The Pimple, for which we were heading now, 
was an observation post at that time. There there 
was a detachment of soldiers, for it was an impor- 
tant post, covering much of the Hun territory 
beyond. A major of infantry was in command; 
his headquarters were a large hole in the ground, 
dug for him by a German shell — fired by German 
gunners who had no thought further from their 
minds than to do a favor for a British officer. 
And he was sitting calmly in front of his head- 
quarters, smoking a pipe, when we reached the 
crest and came to the Pimple. 

He was a very calm man, that major, given, I 
should say, to the greatest repression. I think 
nothing would have moved him from that phleg- 
matic calm of his ! He watched us coming, climb- 
ing and making hard going of it. If he was 
amused he gave no sign, as he puffed at his pipe. 
I, for one, was puffing, too — I was panting like a 
grampus. I had thought myself in good condition, 
but I found out at Vimy Ridge that I was soft 
and flabby. 

Not a sign did that major give until we reached 
him. And then, as we stood looking at him, and 
beyond him at the panorama of the trenches, he 
took his pipe from his mouth. 

** Welcome to Vimy Ridge !" he said, in the man- 



114f A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

ner of a host greeting a party bidden for the week- 
end. 

I was determined that that major should not 
outdo me. I had precious little wind left to 
breathe with, much less to talk, but I called for 
the last of it. 

** Thank you, major," I said. *'May I join you 
in a smoke?'* 

*'0f course you can!" he said, unsmiling. 
"That is, if you've brought your pipe with you." 

"Aye, I've my pipe," I told him. "I may for- 
get to pay my debt, but I'll never forget my pipe." 

And no more I will. 

So I sat down beside him, and drew out my pipe, 
and made a long business of filling it, and pushing 
the tobacco down just so, since that gave me a 
chance to get my wind. And when I was ready to 
light up I felt better, and I was breathing right, 
so that I could talk as I pleased without fighting 
for breath. 

My friend the major proved an entertaining 
jhap, and a talkative one, too, for all his seeming 
brusqueness. He pointed out the spots that had 
been made famous in the battle, and explained to 
me what it was the Canadians had done. And I 
saw and understood better than ever before what 
a great feat that had been, and how heavily it had 
counted. He lent me his binoculars, too, and with 
them I swept the whole valley toward Lens, where 
the great French coal mines are, and where the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 175 

Germans have been under steady fire so long, and 
have been hanging on by their eyelashes. 

It was not the place I should choose, ordinarily, 
to do a bit of sight-seeing. The German shells 
were still humming through the air above us, 
though not quite so often as they had. But there 
were enough of them, and they seemed to me close 
enough for me to feel the wind they raised as they 
passed. I thought for sure one of them would 
come along, presently, and clip my ears right off. 
And sometimes I felt myself ducking my head — 
as if that would do me any good ! But I did not 
think about it ; I would feel myself doing it, with- 
out having intended to do anything of the sort. 
I was a bit nervous, I suppose, but no one could 
be really scared or alarmed in the unplumbable 
depths of calm in which that British major was 
plunged ! 

It was a grand view I had of the valley, but it 
was not the sort of thing I had expected to see. I 
knew there were thousands of men there, and I 
think I had expected to see men really fighting. 
But there was nothing of the sort. Not a man 
could I see in all the valley. They were under 
cover, of course. When I stopped to think about 
it, that was what I should have expected, of 
course. If I could have seen our laddies there 
below, why, the Huns could have seen them too. 
And that would never have done. 

I could hear our guns, too, now, very well. 



176 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

They were giving voice all around me, but never 
a gun could I see, for all my peering and search- 
ing around. Even the battery we had passed be- 
low was out of sight now. And it was a weird 
thing, and an uncanny thing to think of all that 
riot of sound around, and not a sight to be had 
of the batteries that were making it ! 

Hogge came up while I was talking to the major. 

*' Hello!" he said. "What have you done to 
your knee, Lauder?" 

I looked down and saw a trickle of blood run- 
ning down, below my knee. It was bare, of course, 
because I wore my kilt. 

*'0h, that's nothing," I said. 

I knew at once what it was. I remembered that, 
as I stumbled up the hill, I had tripped over a bit 
of barbed wire and scratched my leg. And so I 
explained. 

''And I fell into a shell-hole, too," I said. ''A 
wee one, as they go around here. ' ' But I laughed. 
** Still, I'll be able to say I was wounded on Vimy 
Ridge." 

I glanced at the major as I said that, and was 
half sorry I had made the poor jest. And I saw 
him smile, in one corner of his mouth, as I said I 
had been ''wounded." It was the corner furthest 
from me, but I saw it. And it was a dry smile, a 
withered smile. I could guess his thought. 

"Wounded!" he must have said to himself, 
scornfully. And he must have remembered the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 177 

real wounds the Canadians had received on that 
hillside. Aye, I could guess his thought. And I 
shared it, although I did not tell him so. But I 
think he understood. 

He was still sitting there, puffing away at his 
old pipe, as quiet and calm and imperturbable as 
ever, when Captain Godfrey gathered us together 
to go on. He gazed out over the valley. 

He was a man to be remembered for a long 
time, that major. I can see him now, in my mind's 
eye, sitting there, brooding, staring out toward 
Lens and the German lines. And I think that if 
I were choosing a figure for some great sculptor 
to immortalize, to typify and represent the superb, 
the majestic imperturbability of the British Em- 
pire in time of stress and storm, his would be the 
one. I could think of no finer figure than his for 
such a statue. You would see him, if the sculptor 
followed my thought, sitting in front of his shell- 
hole on Vimy Ridge, calm, dispassionate, devoted 
to his duty and the day's work, quietly giving the 
directions that guided the British guns in their 
work of blasting the Hun out of the refuge he had 
chosen when the Canadians had driven him from 
the spot where the major sat. 

It was easier going down Vimy Ridge than it 
had been coming up, but it was hard going still. 
We had to skirt great, gaping holes torn by mon- 
strous shells — shells that had torn the very guts 
out of the little hill. 



178 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

''We're going to visit another battery," said 
Captain Godfrey. ''I'll tell you I think it's the 
best hidden battery on the whole British front! 
And that's saying a good deal, for we've learned 
a thing or two about hiding our whereabouts from 
Fritz. He's a curious one, Fritz is, but we try not 
to gratify his curiosity any more than we must." 

"I'll be glad to see more of the guns," I said. 

"Well, here you'll see more than guns. The 
major in command at this battery we're heading 
for has a decoration that was given to him just 
for the way he hid his guns. There 's much more 
than fighting that a man has to do in this war if 
he's to make good." 

As we went along I kept my eyes open, trying 
to get a peep at the guns before Godfrey should 
point them out to me. I could hear firing going 
on all around me, but there was so much noise 
that my ears were not a guide. I was not a trained 
observer, of course ; I would not know a gun posi- 
tion at sight, as some soldier trained to the work 
would be sure to do. And yet I thought I could 
tell when I was coming to a great battery. I 
thought so, I say! 

Again, though I had that feeling of something 
weird and uncanny. For now, as we walked along, 
I did hear the guns, and I was sure, from the 
nature of the sound, that we were coming close to 
them. But, as I looked straight toward the spot 
where my ears told me that they must be, I could 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 179 

see nothing at all. I thought that per-haps God- 
frey had lost his way, and that we were wander- 
ing along the wrong path. It did not seem likely, 
but it was possible. 

And then, suddenly, when I was least expecting 
it, we stopped. 

"Well — here we are!" said the captain, and 
grinned at our amazement. 

And there we were indeed! We were right 
among the guns of a Canadian battery, and the 
artillerymen were shouting their welcome, for 
they had heard that I was coming, and recognized 
me as soon as they saw me. But — ^how had we 
got here? I looked around me, in utter amaze- 
ment. Even now that I had come to the battery 
I could not understand how it was that I had been 
deceived — ^how that battery had been so marvel- 
ously concealed that, if one did not know of its 
existence and of its exact location, one might liter- 
ally stumble over it in broad daylight ! 



CHAPTER XVI 

IT had turned very hot, now, at the full of the 
day. Indeed, it was grilling weather, and 
there in the battery, in a hollow, close down 
beside a little run or stream, it was even hotter 
than on the shell-swept bare top of the ridge. So 
the Canadian gunners had stripped down for 
comfort. Not a man had more than his under- 
shirt on above his trousers, and many of them 
were naked to the waist, with their hide tanned to 
the color of old saddles. 

These laddies reminded me of those in the first 
battery I had seen. They were just as calm, and 
just as dispassionate as they worked in their mill 
— it might well have been a mill in which I saw 
them working. Only they were no grinding corn, 
but death — death for the Huns, who had brought 
death to so many of their mates. But there was 
no excitement, there were no cries of hatred and 
anger. 

They were hard at work. Their work, it seemed, 
never came to an end or even to a pause. The 
orders rang out, in a sort of sing-song voice. 
After each shot a man who sat with a telephone 
strapped about his head called out corrections of 
the range, in figures that were just a meaningless 

180 







s 

u 
H 

Eh 

O 
fa 

< 

o 
O 

Q 
BS 

a 

<! 
1-1 

;? 
w 

o 

•-5 
H 

< 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 181 

jumble to me, although they made sense to the 
men who listened and changed the pointing of the 
guns at each order. 

Their faces, that, like their bare backs and 
chests, looked like tanned leather, were all grimy 
from their work among the smoke and the gases. 
And through the grime the sweat had run down 
like little rivers making courses for themselves in 
the soft dirt of a hillside. They looked grotesque 
enough, but there was nothing about them to make 
me feel like laughing, I can tell you! And they 
all grinned amiably when the amazed and discon- 
certed Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour came 
tumbling in among them. We all felt right at 
hame at once — and I the more so when a chap I 
had met and come to know well in Toronto during 
one of my American tours came over and gripped 
my hand. 

*'Aye, but it's good to see your face, Harry!" 
he said, as he made me welcome. 

This battery had done great work ever since it 
had come out. No battery in the whole army had 
a finer record, I was told. And no one needed to 
tell me the tale of its losses. Not far away there 
was a little cemetery, filled with doleful little 
crosses, set up over mounds that told their grim 
story all too plainly and too eloquently. 

The battery had gone through the Battle of 
Vimy Ridge and made a great name for itself. 
And now it was set down upon a spot that had 



182 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

seen some of the very bloodiest of the fighting on 
that day. I saw here, for the first time, some of 
the most horrible things that the war holds. 
There was a little stream, as I said, that ran 
through the hollow in which the battery was 
placed, and that stream had been filled with blood, 
not water, on the day of the battle. 

Everywhere, here, were whitened bones of men. 
In the wild swirling of the battle, and the confu- 
sion of digging in and meeting German counter 
attacks that had followed it, it had not been pos- 
sible to bury all the dead. And so the whitened 
bones remained, though the elements had long 
since stripped them bare. The elements — and the 
hungry rats. These are not pretty things to tell, 
but they are true, and the world should know what 
war is to-day. 

I almost trod upon one skeleton that remained 
complete. It was that of a huge German soldier 
— a veritable giant of a man, he must have been. 
The bones of his feet were still encased in his 
great boots, their soles heavily studded with nails. 
Even a few shreds of his uniform remained. But 
the flesh was all gone. The sun and the rats and 
the birds had accounted for the last morsel of it. 

Hundreds of years from now, I suppose, the 
bones that were strewn along that ground will 
still be being turned up by plows. The genera- 
tions to come who live there will never lack relics 
of the battle, and of the fighting that preceded and 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 183' 

followed it. They will find bones, and shell cases, 
and bits of metal of all sorts. Rusty bayonets will 
be turned up by their plowshares; strange coins, 
as puzzling as some of those of Roman times that 
we in Britain have found, will puzzle them. Who 
can tell how long it will be before the soil about 
Vimy Ridge will cease to give up its relics? 

That ground had been searched carefully for 
everything that might conceivably be put to use 
again, or be made fit for further service. The 
British army searches every battlefield so in these 
days. And yet, when I was there, many weeka 
after the storm of fighting had passed on, and 
when the scavengers had done their work, the 
ground was still rather thickly strewTi with odds 
and ends that interested me vastly. I might have 
picked up much more than I did. But I could not 
carry so very much, and, too, so many of the 
things brought grisly thoughts to my mind ! God 
knows I needed no reminders of the war ! I had 
a reminder in my heart, that never left me. Still, 
I took some few things, more for the sake of the 
hame folks, who might not see, and would, surely, 
be interested. I gathered some bayonets for my 
collection — somehow they seemed the things I was 
most willing to take along. One was British, one 
German — two were French. 

But the best souvenir of all I got at Vimy Ridge 
I did not pick up. It was given to me by my 
friend, the grave major — him of whom I would 



184. A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

like some famous sculptor to make a statue as he 
sat at his work of ohservation. That was a club 
— a wicked looking instrument. This club had a 
great thick head, huge in proportion to its length 
and size, and this head was studded with great, 
sharp nails. A single blow from it would finish 
the strongest man that ever lived. It was a fit 
weapon for a murderer — and a murderer had 
wielded it. The major had taken it from a Hun, 
who had meant to use it — had, doubtless, used it ! 
— to beat out the brains of wounded men, lying on 
the ground. Many of those clubs were taken from 
the Germans, all along the front, both by the Brit- 
ish and the French, and the Germans had never 
made any secret of the purpose for which they 
were intended. Well, they picked poor men to try 
such tactics on when they went against the Cana- 
dians ! 

The Canadians started no such work, but they 
were quick to adopt a policy of give and take. It 
was the Canadians who began the trench raids for 
which the Germans have such a fierce distaste, and 
after they had learned something of how Fritz 
fought the Canadians took to paying him back in 
some of his own coin. Not that they matched the 
deeds of the Huns — only a Hun could do that. But 
the Canadians were not eager to take prisoners. 
They would bomb a dugout rather than take its 
occupants back. And a dugout that has been 
bombed yields few living men! 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 185 

Who shall blame them! Not I — nor any other 
man who knows what lessons in brutality and 
treachery the Canadians have had from the Hun. 
It was the Canadians, near Ypres, who went 
through the first gas attack — that fearful day 
when the Germans were closer to breaking through 
than they ever were before or since. I shall not 
set down here all the tales I heard of the atroci- 
ties of the Huns. Others have done that. Men 
have written of that who have first-hand knowl- 
edge, as mine cannot be. I know only what has 
been told to me, and there is little need of hearsay 
evidence. There is evidence enough that any court 
would accept as hanging proof. But this much 
it is right to say — that no troops along the West- 
ern front have more to revenge than have the 
Canadians. 

It is not the loss of comrades, dearly loved 
though they be, that breeds hatred among the sol- 
diers. That is a part of war, and always was. 
The loss of friends and comrades may fire the 
blood. It may lead men to risk their own lives in 
a desperate charge to get even. But it is a pain 
that does not rankle and that does not fester like 
a sore that will not heal. It is the tales the Cana- 
dians have to tell of sheer, depraved torture and 
brutality that has inflamed them to the pitch of 
hatred that they cherish. It has seemed as if the 
Germans had a particular grudge against the 
Canadians. And that, indeed, is known to be the 



186 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

case. The Germans harbored many a fond illu- 
sion before the war. They thought that Britain 
would not fight, first of all. 

And then, when Britain did declare war, they 
thought they could speedily destroy her ''con- 
temptible little army.'' Ah, weel — they did come 
near to destroying it ! But not until it had helped 
to balk them of their desire — ^not until it had 
played its great and decisive part in ruining the 
plans the Hun had been making and perfecting 
for forty-four long years. And not until it had 
served as a dyke behind which floods of men in 
the khaki of King George had had time to arm 
and drill to rush out to oppose the gray-green 
floods that had swept through helpless Belgium. 

They had other illusions, beside that major one 
that helped to wreck them. They thought there 
would be a rebellion and civil war in Ireland. 
They took too seriously the troubles of the early 
summer of 1914, when Ulster and the South of Ire- 
land were snapping and snarling at each other's 
throats. They looked for a new mutiny in India, 
which should keep Britain's hands full. They 
expected strikes at home. But, above all, they 
were sure that the great, self-governing depend- 
encies of Britain, that made up the mighty British 
Empire, would take no part in the fight. 

Canada, Australasia, South Africa — they never 
reckoned upon having to cope with them. These 
were separate nations, they thought, independent 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 187 

in fact if not in name, which would seize the occa- 
sion to separate themselves entirely from the 
mother country. In South Africa they were sure 
that there would be smoldering discontent enough 
left from the days of the Boer war to break out 
into a new flame of war and rebellion at this great 
chance. 

And so it drove them mad with fury when they 
learned that Canada and all the rest had gone in, 
heart and soul. And when even their poison gas 
could not make the Canadians yield; when, later 
still, they learned that the Canadians were their 
match, and more than their match, in every phase 
of the great game of war, their rage led them to 
excesses against the men from overseas even more 
damnable than those that were their general 
practice. 

These Canadians, who were now my hosts, had 
located their guns in a pit triangular in shape. 
The guns were mounted at the corners of the tri- 
angle, and along its sides. And constantly, while 
I was there they coughed their short, sharp coughs 
and sent a spume of metal flying toward the Ger- 
man lines. Never have I seen a busier spot. And, 
remember — until I had almost fallen into that pit, 
with its sputtering, busy guns, I had not beer able 
to make even a good guess as to where they were ! 
The very presence of this workshop of death was 
hidden from all save those who had a right to know 
of it. 



188 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

It was a masterly piece of camouflage. I wish 
I could explain to you how the effect was achieved. 
It was all made plain to me; every step of the 
process was explained, and I cried out in wonder 
and in admiration at the clever simplicity of it. 
But that is one of the things I may not tell. I saw 
many things, during my time at the front, that the 
Germans would give a pretty penny to know. But 
none of the secrets that I learned would be more 
valuable, even to-day, than that of that hidden bat- 
tery. And so — I must leave you in ignorance as 
to that. 

The commanding officer was most kindly and 
patient in explaining matters to me. 

'*We can't see hide nor hair of our targets here, 
of course," he said, "any more than Fritz can see 
us. We get all our ranges and the records of all 
our hits, from Normabell.'* 

I looked a question, I suppose. 

"You called on him, I think — up on the Pimple. 
Major Normabell, D.S.O." 

That was how I learned the name of the imper- 
turbable major with whom I had smoked a pipe 
on the crest of Vimy Ridge. I shall always re- 
member his name and him. I saw no man in 
France who made a livelier impression upon my 
mind and my imagination. 

"Aye," I said. "I remember. So that's his 
name — Normabell, D.S.O. I'll make a note of 
th^t," 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 189 

My informant smiled. 

"Normabell's one of our characters," he said. 
*'Well, you see he commands a goodish bit of 
country there where he sits. And when he needs 
them he has aircraft observations to help him, 
too. He's our pair of eyes. We're like moles 
down here, we gunners — but he does all our seeing 
for us. And he's in constant communication — he 
or one of his officers. ' ' 

I wondered where all the shells the battery was 
firing were headed for. And I learned that just 
then it was paying its respects particularly to a 
big factory building just west of Lens. For some 
reason that had been marked for destruction, but 
it had been reinforced and strengthened so that 
it was taking a lot of smashing and standing a 
good deal more punishment than anyone had 
thought it could — which was reason enough, in 
itself, to stick to the job until that factory was 
nothing more than a heap of dust and ruins. 

The way the guns kept pounding away at it 
made me think of firemen in a small town drench- 
ing a local blaze with their hose. The gunners 
were just so eager as that. And I could almost see 
that factory, crumbling away. Major Normabell 
had pointed it out to me, up on the ridge, and now 
I knew why. I '11 venture to say that before night 
the eight-inch howitzers of that battery had ut- 
terly demolished it, and so ended whatever useful- 
ness it had had for the Germans, 



190 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

It was cruel business to be knocking the towns 
and factories of our ally, France, to bits in the 
fashion that we were doing that day — there and 
at many another point along the front. The Huns 
are fond of saying that much of the destruction in 
Northern France has been the work of allied artil- 
lery. True enough — but who made that inevit- 
able? And it was not our guns that laid waste a 
whole countryside before the German retreat in 
the spring of 1917, when the Huns ran wild, root- 
ing up fruit trees, cutting down every other tree 
that could be found, and doing every other sort 
of wanton damage and mischief their hands could 
find to do. 

' ' Hard lines, ' ' said the battery commander. He 
shrugged his shoulders. ''No use trying to spare 
shells here, though, even on French towns. The 
harder we smash them the sooner it'll be over. 
Look here, sir." 

He pointed out the men who sat, their telephone 
receivers strapped over their ears. Each served 
a gun. In all that hideous din it was of the utmost 
importance that they should hear correctly every 
word and figure that came to them over the wire 
— a part of that marvelously complete telephone 
and telegraph system that has been built for and 
by the British army in France. 

**They get corrections on every shot," he told 
me. ''The guns are altered in elevation according 
to what they hear. The range is changed, and the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 191 

pointing, too. We never see old Fritz — but we 
know he's getting the visiting cards we send 
him." 

They were amazingly calm, those laddies at the 
telephones. In all that hideous, never-ending din, 
they never grew excited. Their voices were calm 
and steady as they repeated the orders that came 
to them. I have seen girls at hotel switchboards, 
expert operators, working with conditions made 
to their order, who grew infinitely more excited at 
a busy time, when many calls were coming in and 
going out. Those men might have been at home, 
talking to a friend of their plans for an evening 's 
diversion, for all the nervousness or fussiness they 
showed. 

Up there, on the Pimple, I had seen Normabell, 
the eyes of the battery. Here I was watching its 
ears. And, to finish the metaphor, to work it out, 
I was listening to its voice. Its brazen tongues 
were giving voice continually. The guns — after 
all, everything else led up to them. They were the 
reason for all the rest of the machinery of the bat- 
tery, and it was they who said the last short 
word. 

There was a good deal of rough joking and 
laughter in the battery. The Canadian gunners 
took their task lightly enough, though their work 
was of the hardest — and of the most dangerous, 
too. But jokes ran from group to group, from 
gun to gun. They were constantly kidding one 



192 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

another, as an American would say, I think. If a 
correction came for one gun that showed there had 
been a mistake in sighting after the last orders — 
if, that is, the gunners, and not the distant ob- 
servers, were plainly at fault — there would be a 
good-natured outburst of chafiQng from all the 
others. 

But, though such a spirit of lightness prevailed, 
there was not a moment of loafing. These men 
were engaged in a grim, deadly task, and every 
once in a while I would catch a black, purposeful 
look in a man's eyes that made me realize that, 
under all the light talk and laughter there was a 
perfect realization of the truth. They might not 
show, on the surface, that they took life and their 
work seriously. Ah, no! They preferred, after 
the custom of their race, to joke with death. 

And so they were doing quite literally. The 
Germans knew perfectly well that there was a bat- 
tery somewhere near the spot where I had found 
my gunners. Only the exact location was hidden 
from them, and they never ceased their efforts to 
determine that. Fritz's airplanes were always 
trying to sneak over to get a look. An airplane 
was the only means of detection the Canadians 
feared. No — I will not say they feared it! The 
word fear did not exist for that battery! But it 
was the only way in which there was a tolerable 
chance, even, for Fritz to locate them, and, for the 
sake of the whole operation at that point, as well 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 193 

as for their own interest, they were eager to avoid 
that. 

German airplanes were always trying to sneak 
over, I say, but nearly always our men of the 
Royal Flying Corps drove them back. We came 
as close, just then, to having command of the air 
in that sector as any army does these days. You 
cannot quite command or control the air. A few 
hostile flyers can get through the heaviest barrage 
and the staunchest air patrol. And so, every once 
in a while, an alarm would sound, and all hands 
would crane their necks upward to watch an air- 
plane flying above with an iron cross painted upon 
its wings. 

Then, and, as a rule, then only, fire would cease 
for a few minutes. There was far less chance of 
detection when the guns were still. At the height 
at which our archies — so the anti-aircraft guns 
are called by Tommy Atkins — forced the Boche to 
fly there was little chance of his observers picking 
out this battery, at least, against the ground. If 
the guns were giving voice that chance was 
tripled — and so they stopped, at such times, until 
a British flyer had had time to engage the Hun 
and either bring him down or send him scurrying 
for the safe shelter behind his own lines. 

Fritz, in the air, liked to have the odds with 
him, as a rule. It was exceptional to find a Ger- 
man flyer like Boelke who really went in for 
single-handed duels in the air. As a rule they pre- 



194. A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

ferred to attack a single plane with half a dozen, 
and so make as sure as they could of victory at a 
minimum of risk. But that policy did not always 
work — sometimes the lone British flyer came out 
ahead, despite the odds against him. 

There was a good deal of firing on general 
principles from Fritz. His shells came wandering 
querulously about, striking on every side of the 
battery. Occasionally, of course, there was a hit 
that was direct, or nearly so. And then, as a rule, 
a new mound or two would appear in the little 
cemetery, and a new set of crosses that, for a few 
days, you might easily enough have marked for 
new because they would not be weathered yet. But 
such hits were few and far between, and they were 
lucky, casual shots, of which the Germans them- 
selves did not have the satisfaction of knowing. 

"Of course, if they get our range, really, and 
find out all about us, we'll have to move," said 
the officer in command. ''That would be a bore, 
but it couldn't be helped. We're a fixed target, 
you see, as soon as they know just where we are, 
and they can turn loose a battery of heavy howitz- 
ers against us and clear us out of here in no time. 
But we're pretty quick movers when we have to 
move! It's great sport, in a way too, sometimes. 
We leave all the camouflage behind, and some- 
times Fritz will spend a week shelling a position 
that was moved away at the first shell that came 
as if it meant they really were on to us." 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 195 

I wondered how a battery commander would 
determine the difference between a casual hit and 
the first shell of a bombardment definitely planned 
and accurately placed. 

**You can tell, as a rule, if you know the game," / 
he said. * ' There '11 be searching shells, you see. / 
There'll be one too far, perhaps. And then, after 
a pretty exact interval, there'll be another, maybe 
a bit short. Then one to the left — and then to 
the right. By that time we're off as a rule — ^we 
don't wait for the one that will be scored a hit! 
If you're quick, you see, you can beat Fritz to it 
by keeping your eyes open, and being ready to 
move in a hurry when he 's got a really good argu- S^ 
ment to make you do it." 

But while I was there, while Fritz was inquisi- 
tive enough, his curiosity got him nowhere. There 
were no casual hits, even, and there was nothing 
to make the battery feel that it must be making 
ready for a quick trek. 

Was that no a weird, strange game of hide and 
seek that I watched being played at Vimy Ridge? 
It gave me the creeps, that idea of battling with 
an enemy you could not see ! It must be hard, at 
times, I think, for, the gunners to realize that they 
are actually at war. But, no — there is always the 
drone and the squawking of the German shells, 
and the plop-plop, from time to time, as one finds 
its mark in the mud nearby. But to think of 
shooting always at an enemy you cannot see ! 



1% A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

It brought to my mind a tale I had heard at 
hame in Scotland. There was a hospital in Glas- 
gow, and there a man who had gone to see a friend 
stopped, suddenly, in amazement, at the side of a 
cot. He looked down at features that were famil- 
iar to him. The man in the cot was not looking 
at him, and the visitor stood gaping, staring at him 
in the utmost astonishment and doubt. 

*'I say, man," he asked, at last, ''are ye not 
Tamson, the baker?" 

The wounded man opened his eyes, and looked 
up, weakly. 

"Aye," he said. "I'm Tamson, the baker." 

His voice was weak, and he looked tired. But 
he looked puzzled, too. 

"Weel, Tamson, man, what's the matter wi' 
ye ? " asked the other. ' ' I didna hear that ye were 
sick or hurt. How comes it ye are here? Can 
it be that ye ha ' been to the war, man, and we not 
hearing of it, at all!" 

"Aye, I think so," said Tamson, still weakly, 
but as if he were rather glad of a chance to talk, 
at that. 

"Ye think so?" asked his friend, in greater 
astonishment than ever. "Man, if ye've been to 
the war do ye not know it for sure and certain?" 

"Well, I will tell ye how it is," said Tamson, 
very slowly and wearily. "I was in the reserve, 
do ye ken. And I was standin* in front of .my 
hoose one day in August, thinMn' of nothin' at 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 197 

all. I marked a man who was coming doon the 
street, wi ' a blue paper in his hand, and studyin ' the 
numbers on the doorplates. But I paid no great 
heed to him until he stopped and spoke to me. 

''He had stopped outside my hoose and looked 
at the number, and then at his blue paper. And 
then he turned to me. 

" 'Are ye Tamson, the baker T he asked me — 
just as ye asked me that same question the noo. 

"And I said to him, just as I said it to ye, 'Aye, 
I'm Tamson, the baker.' 

" 'Then it's Hamilton Barracks for ye, Tam- 
son, ' he said, and handed me the blue paper. 

' ' Four hours from the time when he handed me 
the blue paper in front of my hoose in Glasgow 
I was at Hamilton Barracks. In twelve hours I 
was in Southhampton. In twenty hours I was in 
France. And aboot as soon as I got there I was 
in a lot of shooting and running this way and that 
that they ha' told me since was the Battle of the 
Marne. 

"And in twentj^-four hours more I was on my 
way back to Glasgow! In forty-eight hours I 
woke up in Stobe Hill Infirmary and the nurse was 
saying in my ear : ' Ye 're all richt the noon, Tam- 
son. We ha' only just amputated your leg!' 

" So I think I ha ' been to the war, but I can only 
say I think so. I only know what I was told — 
that ha' never seen a damn German yet!" 

That is a true story of Tamson the baker. And 



198 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

his experience has actually been shared by many a 
poor fellow — and by many another who might 
have counted himself lucky if he had lost no more 
than a leg, as Tamson did. 

But the laddies of my battery, though they were 
shooting now at Germans they could not see, had 
had many a close up view of Fritz in the past, and 
expected many another in the future. Maybe they 
will get one, some time, after the fashion of the 
company of which my boy John once told me. 

The captain of this company — a Hieland com- 
pany, it was, though not of John's regiment — had 
spent must of his time in London before the war, 
and belonged to several clubs, which, in those 
days, employed many Germans as servants and 
waiters. He was a big man, and he had a deep, 
bass voice, so that he roared like the bull of Bas- 
han when he had a mind to raise it for all to hear. 

One day things were dull in his sector. The 
front line trench was not far from that of the Ger- 
mans, but there was no activity beyond that of the 
snipers, and the Germans were being so cautious 
that ours were getting mighty few shots. The 
captain was bored, and so were the men. 

''How would you like a pot shot, lads?" he 
asked. 

''Fine!" came the answer. "Fine, sir!" 

"Very well," said the captain. "Get ready 
with your rifles, and keep your eyes on yon 
trench. ' ' 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 199 

It was not more than thirty yards away — point- 
blank range. The captain waited until they were 
ready. And then his voice rang out in its loudest, 
most commanding roar. 

''Waiter!" he shouted. 

Forty helmets popped up over the German 
parapet, and a storm of bullets swept them away ! 



CHAPTER XVII 

IT was getting late — for men who had had so 
early a breakfast as we had had to make to 
get started in good time. And just as I was 
beginning to feel hungry — odd, it seemed to me, 
that such a thing as lunch should stay in my mind 
in such surroundings and when so many vastly 
more important things were afoot! — the major 
looked at his wrist watch. 

"By Jove!" he said, ''Lunch time! Gentle- 
men — you'll accept such hospitality as we can 
offer you at our officer's mess?" 

There wasn't any question about acceptance! 
We all said we were delighted, and we meant it. 
I looked around for a hut or some such place, or 
even for a tent, and, seeing nothing of the sort, 
wondered where we might be going to eat. I soon 
found out. The major led the way underground, 
into a dugout. This was the mess. It was hard 
by the guns, and in a hole that had been dug out, 
quit literally. Here there was a certain degree 
of safety. In these dugouts every phase of the 
battery's life except the actual serving of the guns 
went on. Officers and men alike ate and slept in 
them. 

They were much snugger within than you might 
200 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 201 

fancy. A lot of the men had given homelike 
touches to their habitations. Pictures cut from 
the illustrated papers at home, which are such 
prime favorites with all the Tommies made up a 
large part of the decorative scheme. Pictures of 
actresses predominated; the Tommies didn't go 
in for war pictures. Indeed, there is little disposi- 
tion to hammer the war home at you in a dugout. 
The men don't talk about it or think about, save as 
they must ; you hear less talk about the war along 
the front than you do at home. I heard a story 
at Vimy Eidge of a Tommy who had come back 
to the trenches after seeing Blighty for the first 
time in months. 

''Hello, Bill," said one of his mates. "Back 
again, are youl How's things in Blighty?" 

''Oh, all right," said Bill. 

Then he looked around. He pricked his ears as 
a shell whined above him. And he took out his 
pipe and stuffed it full of tobacco, and lighted it, 
and sat back. He sighed in the deepest content 
as the smoke began to curl upward. 

"Bli'me, Bill — I'd say, to look at you, you was 
glad to be back here!" said his mate, astonished. 

"Well, I ain't so sorry, and that's a fact," said 
Bill. "I tell you how it is, Alf. Back there in 
Blighty they don't talk about nothing but this 
bloody war. I'm fair fed up with it, that I am! 
I'm glad to be back here, where I don't have to 
'ear about the war every bleedin' minute!" 



202 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

That story sounds far fetched to you, perhaps, 
but it isn't. War talk is shop talk to the men who 
are fighting it and winning it, and it is perfectly 
true and perfectly reasonable, too, that they like 
to get away from it when they can, just as any man 
likes to get away from the thought of his business 
or his work when he isn't at the office or the fac- 
tory or the shop. 

Captain Godfrey explained to me, as we went 
into the mess hall for lunch, that the dugouts were 
really pretty safe. Of course there were dangers 
— where are there not along that strip of land 
that runs from the North Sea to Switzerland in 
France and Belgium? 

'*A direct hit from a big enough shell would 
bury us all," he said. ''But that's not likely — 
the chances are all against it. And, even then, 
we'd have a chance. I've seen men dug out alive 
from a hole like this after a shell from one of their 
biggest howitzers had landed square upon it." 

But I had no anxiety to form part of an experi- 
ment to prove the truth or the falsity of that sug- 
gestion ! I was glad to know that the chances of 
a shell's coming along were pretty slim. 

Conditions were primitive at that mess. The 
refinements of life were lacking, to be sure — but 
who cared 1 Certainly the hungry members of the 
Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour did not! 
We ate from a rough deal table, sitting on rude 
benches that had a decidedly home-made look. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 203 

But — we had music with our meals, just like the 
folks in London at the Savoy or in New York at 
Sherry's! It was the incessant thunder of the 
guns that served as the musical accompaniment of 
our lunch, and I was already growing to love that 
music. I could begin, now, to distinguish degrees 
of sound and modulations of all sorts in the 
mighty diapason of the cannon. It was as if a 
conductor were leading an orchestra, and as if it 
responded instantly to every suggestion of his 
baton. 

There was not much variety to the food, but 
there was plenty of it, and it was good. There 
was bully beef, of course ; that is the real staff of 
life for the British army. And there were pota- 
toes, in plentiful supply, and bread and butter, 
and tea — there is always tea where Tommy or his 
officers are about! There was a lack of table 
ware; a dainty soul might not have liked the 
thought of spreading his butter on his bread with 
his thumb, as we had to do. But I was too hungry 
to be fastidious, myself. 

Because the mess had guests there was a special 
dish in our honor. One of the men had gone over 
— at considerable risk of his life, as I learned later 
— to the heap of stones and dust that had once 
been the village of Givenchy. There he had found 
a lot of gooseberries. The French call them gros- 
sets, as we in Scotland do, too — although the 
pronunciation of the word is different in the two 



204. A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

languages, of course. There had been gardens 
around the houses of Givenchy once, before the 
place had been made into a desert of rubble and 
brickdust. And, somehow, life had survived in 
those bruised and battered gardens, and the deli- 
cious mess of gooseberries that we had for dessert 
stood as proof thereof. 

The meal was seasoned by good talk. I love 
to hear the young British officers talk. It is a 
liberal education. They have grown so wise, those 
boys! Those of them who come back when the 
war is over will have the world at their feet, in- 
deed. Nothing will be able to stop them or to 
check them in their rise. They have learned every 
great lesson that a man must learn if he is to suc- 
ceed in the aifairs of life. Self control is theirs, 
and an infinite patience, and a dogged determina- 
tion that refuses to admit that there are any things 
that a man cannot do if he only makes up his mind 
that he must and will do them. For the British 
army has accomplished the impossible, time after 
time ; it has done things that men knew could not 
be done. 

And so we sat and talked, as we smoked, after 
the meal, until the major rose, at last, and invited 
me to walk around the battery again with him. I 
could ask questions now, having seen the men at 
work, and he explained many things I wanted to 
know — and which Fritz would like to know, too, 
to this day ! But above all I was fascinated by the 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 205 

work of the gunners. I kept trying, in my mind's 
eye, to follow the course of the shells that were 
dispatched so calmly upon their errands of de- 
struction. My imagination played with the 
thought of what they were doing at the other end 
of their swift voyage through the air. I pictured 
the havoc that must be wrought when one made a 
clean hit. 

And, suddenly, I was swept by that same almost 
irresistible desire to be fighting myself that had 
come over me when I had seen the other battery. 
If I could only play my part ! If I could fire even 
a single shot — if I, with my own hands, could do 
that much against those who had killed my boy! 
And then, incredulously, I heard the words in my 
ear. It was the major. 

''Would you like to try a shot, Harry?" he 
asked me. 

Would I? I stared at him. I couldn't believe 
my ears. It was as if he had read my thoughts. 
I gasped out some sort of an affirmative. My 
blood was boiling at the very thought, and the 
sweat started from my pores. 

''All right — nothing easier!" said the major, 
smiling. "I had an idea you were wanting to 
take a hand, Harry." 

He led me toward one of the guns, where the 
sweating crew was especially active, as it seemed 
to me. They grinned at me as they saw me 
coming. 



206 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

"Here's old Harry Lauder come to take a crack 
at them himself," I heard one man say to another. 

"Good for him! The more the merrier!" an- 
swered his mate. He was an American — would 
ye no know it from his speech? 

I was trembling Avith eagerness. I wondered if 
my shot would tell. I tried to visualize its conse- 
quences. It might strike some vital spot. It might 
kill some man whose life was of the utmost value 
to the enemy. It might — it might do anything! 
And I knew that my shot would be watched ; Nor- 
mabell, sitting up there on the Pimple in his little 
observatory, would watch it, as he did all of that 
battery's shots. Would be make a report? 

Everything was made ready. The gun recoiled 
from the previous shot; swiftly it was swabbed 
out. A new shell was handed up ; I looked it over 
tenderly. That was my shell! I watched the 
men as they placed it and saw it disappear with a 
jerk. Then came the swift sighting of the gun, 
the almost inperceptible corrections of elevation 
and position. 

They showed me my place. After all, it was the 
simplest of matters to fire even the biggest of 
guns. I had but to pull a lever. All morning I 
had been watching men do that. I knew it was 
but a perfunctory act. But I could not feel that ! 
I was thrilled and excited as I had never been in 
all my life before. 

"All ready! Fire!" 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 207 

The order rang in my ears. And I pulled the 
lever, as hard as I could. The great gun sprang 
into life as I moved the lever. I heard the roar 
of the explosion, and it seemed to me that it was 
a louder bark than any gun I had heard had given ! 
It was not, of course, and so, down in my heart, I 
knew. There was no shade of variation between 
that shot and all the others that had been fired. 
But it pleased me to think so— it pleases me, some- 
times, to think so even now. Just as it pleases me 
to think that that long snouted engine of war pro- 
pelled that shell, under my guiding hand, with 
unwonted accuracy and effectiveness ! Perhaps I 
was childish, to feel as I did; indeed, I have no 
doubt that that was so. But I dinna care ! 

There was no report by telephone from Norma- 
bell about that particular shot; I hung about a 
while, by the telephone listeners, hoping one would 
come. And it disappointed me that no attention 
was paid to that shot. 

''Probably simply means it went home," said 
Godfrey. "A shot that acts just as it should 
doesn't get reported." 

But I was disappointed, just the same. And 
yet the sensation is one I shall never forget, and 
I shall never cease to be glad that the major gave 
me my chance. The most thrilling moment was 
that of the recoil of the great gun. I felt exactly 
as one does when one dives into deep water from 
a considerable height. 



208 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

"Good work, Harry!" said the major, warmly, 
when I had stepped down. " I '11 wager you wiped 
out a bit of the German trenches with that shot! 
I think I'll draft you and keep you here as a gun- 
ner ! ' * 

And the officers and men all spoke in the same 
way, smiling as they did so. But I hae me doots ! 
I'd like to think I did real damage with my one 
shot, but I'm afraid my shell was just one of those 
that turned up a bit of dirt and made one of those 
small brown eruptions I had seen rising on all 
sides along the German lines as I had sat and 
smoked my pipe with Normabell earlier in the day. 

"Well, anyway," I said, exultingly, "that's 
that! I hope I got two for my one, at least!" 

But my exultation did not last long. I re- 
flected upon the inscrutability of war and of this 
deadly fighting that was going on all about me. 
How casual a matter was this sending out of a 
shell that could, in a flash of time, obliterate all 
that lived in a wide circle about where it chanced 
to strike! The pulling of a lever — that was all 
that I had done ! And at any moment a shell some 
German gunner had sent winging its way through 
the air in precisely that same, casual fashion 
might come tearing into this quiet nook, guided by 
some chance, lucky for him, and wipe out the 
major, and all the pleasant boys with whom I had 
broken bread just now, and the sweating gunners 
who had cheered me on as I fired my shot ! 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 209 

I was to give a concert for this battery, and I 
felt that it was time, now, for it to begin. I could 
see, too, that the men were growing a bit impatient. 
And so I said that I was ready. 

''Then come along to our theater," said the 
major, and grinned at my look of astonishment. 

''Oh, we've got a real amphitheater for you, 
such as the Greeks used for the tragedies of 
Sophocles!" he said. "There it is!" 

He had not stretched the truth. It was a superb 
theater — a great, crater-like hole in the ground. 
Certainly it was as well ventilated a show house 
as you could hope for, and I found, when the time 
came, that the acoustics were splendid. I went 
down into the middle of the hole, with Hogge and 
Adam, who had become part of my company, and 
the soldiers grouped themselves about its rim. 

Before we left Boulogne a definite programme 
had been laid out for the Reverend Harry Lauder, 
M.P., Tour. We had decided that we would get 
better results by adopting a programme and stick- 
ing to it at all our meetings or concerts. So, at 
all the assemblies that we gathered, Hogge opened 
proceedings by talking to the men about pensions, 
the subject in which he was so vitally interested, 
and in which he had done and was doing such mag- 
nificent work. Adam would follow him with a 
talk about the war and its progress. 

He was a splendid speaker, was Adam. He had 
all the eloquence of the fine preacher that he was, 



210 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

but he did not preach to the lads in the trenches — 
not he! He told them about the war, and about 
the way the folks at hame in Britain were backing 
them up. He talked about war loans and food 
conservation, and made them understand that it 
was not they alone who were doing the fighting. 
It was a cheering and an inspiring talk he gave 
them, and he got good round applause wherever he 
spoke. 

They saved me up for the last, and when Adam 
had finished speaking either he or Hogge would in- 
troduce me, and my singing would begin. That 
was the programme we had arranged for the Hole- 
in-the-Ground Theater, as the Canadians called 
their amphitheater. For this performance, of 
course, I had no piano. Johnson and the w^ee 
instrument were back where we had left the motor 
cars, and so I just had to sing without an accom- 
paniment — except that which the great booming 
of the guns was to furnish me. 

I was afraid at first that the guns would bother 
me. But as I listened to Hogge and Adam I 
ceased, gradually, to notice them at all, and I soon 
felt that they would annoy me no more, when it 
was my turn to go on, than the chatter of a bunch 
of stage hands in the wings of a theater had so 
often done. 

When it was my turn I began with *'Roamin' In 
the Gloamin'." The verse went well, and I s^vung 
into the chorus. I had picked the song to open 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 211 

with because I knew the soldiers were pretty sure 
to know it, and so would join me in the chorus — 
which is something I always want them to do. 
And these were no exceptions to the general rule. 
But, just as I got into the chorus, the tune of the 
guns changed. They had been coughing and spit- 
ting intermittently, but now, suddenly, it seemed 
to me that it was as if someone had kicked the lid 
off the fireworks factory and dropped a lighted 
torch inside. 

Every gun in the battery around the hole began 
whanging away at once. I was jumpy and nerv- 
ous, I'll admit, and it was all I could do to hold to 
the pitch and not break the time. I thought all of 
Von Hindenburg's army must be attacking us, 
and, from the row and din, I judged he must have 
brought up some of the German navy to help, in- 
stead of letting it lie in the Kiel canal where the 
British fleet could not get at it. I never heard 
such a terrific racket in all my days. 

I took the opportunity to look around at my 
audience. They didn't seem to be a bit excited. 
They all had their eyes fixed on me, and they 
weren't listening to the guns — only to me and my 
singing. And so, as they probably knew what was 
afoot, and took it so quietly, I managed to keep 
on singing as if I, too, were used to such a row, 
and thought no more of it than of the ordinary 
traffic noise of a London or a Glasgow street. But 
if I really managed to look that way my appear- 



212 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

ances were most deceptive, because I was nearer 
to being scared than I had been at any time yet ! 
But presently I began to get interested in the 
noise of the guns. They developed a certain regu- 
lar rhythm. I had to allow for it, and make it fit 
the time of what I was singing. And as I realized 
that probably this was just a part of the regular 
day's work, a bit of ordinary strafing, and not a 
feature of a grand attack, I took note of the 
rhythm. It went something like this, as near as 
I can gie it to you in print : 

"Roamin' in the— PUH— LAH— gloamin'— BAM! 
''On the— WHUFF!— BOOM!— bonny— BR-R-R!— 
banks o'— BIFF— Clyde— ZOW!" 

And so it went all through the rest of the con- 
cert. I had to adjust each song I sang to that odd 
rhythm of the guns, and I don't know but what 
it was just as well that Johnson wasn't there! 
He'd have had trouble staying with me with his 
wee bit piano, I'm thinkin' ! 

And, do you ken, I got to see, after a bit, that it 
was the gunners, all the time, havin' a bit of fun 
with me ! For when I sang a verse the gmns be- 
haved themselves, but every time I came to the 
chorus they started up the same inferno of noise 
again. I think they wanted to see, at first, if they 
could no shake me enough to make me stop singing, 
and they liked me the better when they found I 
would no stop. The soldiers soon began to laugh. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 213 

but the joke was not all on me, and I could see that 
they understood that, and were pleased. Indeed, 
it was all as amusing to me as to them. 

I doubt if ''Eoamin' in the Gloamin' " or any 
other song was ever sung in such circumstances. 
I sang several more songs — they called, as every 
audience I have seems to do, for me to sing my 
*'Wee Hoose Amang the Heather" — and then 
Captain Godfrey brought the concert to an end. It 
was getting along toward midafternoon, and he 
explained that we had another call to make before 
dark. 

''Good-by, Harry — good luck to you! Thanks 
for the singing ! ' ' 

Such cries rose from all sides, and the Canadians 
came crowding around to shake my hand. It was 
touching to see how pleased they were, and it made 
me rejoice that I had been able to come. I had 
thought, sometimes, that it might be a presump- 
tuous thing, in a way, for mo to want to go so near 
the front, but the way I had been able to cheer up 
the lonely, dull routine of that battery went far 
to justify me in coming, I thought. 

I was sorry to be leaving the Canadians. And 
I was glad to see that they seemed as sorry to 
have me go as I was to be going. I have a very 
great fondness for the Canadian soldier. He is 
certainly one of the most picturesque and interest- 
ing of all the men who are fighting under the flags 
of the Allies, and it is certain that the world can 



214. A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

never forget the record he has made in this war — 
a record of courage and heroism unexcelled by any 
and equaled by few. 

I stood around while we were getting ready to 
start back to the cars, and one of the officers was 
with me. 

"How often do you get a shell right inside the 
pit here I" I asked him. "A fair hit, I mean?" 

"Oh, I don't know!" he said, slowly. He 
looked around. "You know that hole you were 
singing in just now ? ' ' 

I nodded. I had guessed that it had been made 
by a shell. 

"Well, that's the result of a Boche shell," 
he said. * ' If you 'd come yesterday we 'd have had 
to find another place for your concert!" 

"Oh— is that so!" I said. 

"Aye," he said, and grinned. "We didn't tell 
you before, Harry, because we didn't want you to 
feel nervous, or anything like that, while you were 
singing. But it was obliging of Fritz — now 
wasn't it? Think of having him take all the 
trouble to dig out a fine theater for us that way!" 

"It was obliging of him, to be sure," I said, 
rather dryly. 

"That's what we said," said the officer. "Why, 
as soon as I saw the hole that shell had made, I 
said to Campbell: *By Jove — there's the very 
place for Harry Lauder's concert to-morrow!' 
And he agreed with me!" 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 215 

Now it was time for handshaking and good-bys. 
I said farewell all around, and wished good luck 
to that brave battery, so cunningly hidden away 
in its pit. There was a great deal of cheery shout- 
ing and waving of hands as we went off. And in 
two minutes the battery was out of sight — even 
though we knew exactly where it was ! 

We made our way slowly back, through the 
lengthening shadows, over the shell-pitted ground. 
The motor cars were waiting, and Johnson, too. 
Everything was shipshape and ready for a new 
start, and we climbed in. 

As we drove off I looked back at Vimy Ridge. 
And I continued to gaze at it for a long time. No 
longer did it disappoint me. No longer did I re- 
gard it as an insignificant hillock. All that feeling 
that had come to me with my first sight of it had 
been banished by my introduction to the famous 
ridge itself. 

It had spoken to me eloquently, despite the mute- 
ness of the myriad tongues it had. It had graven 
deep into my heart the realization of its true place 
in history. 

An excrescence in a flat country — a little hump 
of ground! That is all there is to Vimy Ridge. 
Aye ! It does not stand so high above the ground 
of Flanders as would the books that will be writ- 
ten about it in the future, were you to pile them 
all up together when the last one of them is 
printed! But what a monument it is to bravery 



216 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

and to sacrifice — to all that is best in this human 
race of ours ! 

No human hands have ever reared such a monu- 
ment as that ridge is and will be. There some of 
the greatest deeds in history were done — some of 
the noblest acts that there is record of performed. 
There men lived and died gloriously in their brief 
moment of climax — the moment for which, all un- 
knowing, all their lives before that day of battle 
had been lived. 

I took off my cap as I looked back, with a ges- 
ture and a thought of deep and solemn reverence. 
And so I said good-by to Vimy Eidge, and to the 
brave men I had known there — living and dead. 
For I felt that I had come to know some of the dead 
as well as the living. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

*"V T'OU'LL see anotlier phase of the front now, 
Y Harry," said Captain Godfrey, as I 
turned my eyes to the front once more. 

"What's the next stop?" I asked. 

"We 're heading for a rest billet behind the lines. 
There'll be lots of men there who are just out of 
the trenches. It's a ghastly strain for even the 
best and most seasoned troops — this work in the 
trenches. So, after a battalion has been in for 
a certain length of time, it's pulled out and sent 
back to a rest billet." 

"What do they do there?" I asked. 

"Well, they don't loaf — there's none of that in 
the British army, these days! But it's paradise, 
after the trenches. For one thing there isn't the 
constant danger there is up front. The men aren't 
under steady fire. Of course, there's always the 
chance of a bomb dropping raid by a Taube or a 
Fokker. The men get a chance to clean up. They 
get baths, and their clothes are cleaned and disin- 
fected. They get rid of the cooties — you know 
what they are?" 

I could guess. The plague of vermin in the 
trenches is one of the minor horrors of war. 

"They do a lot of drilling," Godfrey went on. 
"Except for those times in the rest billets, regi- 

217 



218 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

ments might get a bit slack. In the trenches, you 
see, the routine is strict, but it's different. Men 
are much more on their own. There aren't any 
inspections of kit and all that sort of thing — not 
for neatness, anyway. 

''And it's a good thing for soldiers to be neat. 
It helps discipline. And discipline, in time of war, 
isn't just a parade-ground matter. It means lives 
— every time. Your disciplined man, who's 
trained to do certain things automatically, is the 
man you can depend on in any sort of emergency. 

''That's the thing that the Canadians and the 
Australians have had to learn since they came out. 
There never were any braver troops than those 
in the world, but at first they didn't have the auto- 
matic discipline they needed. That'll be the first 
problem in training the new American armies, too. 
It's a highly practical matter. And so, in the rest 
billets, they drill the men a goodish bit. It keeps 
up the morale, and makes them fitter and keener 
for the work when they go back to the trenches." 

"You don't make it sound much like a real rest 
for them," I said. 

"Oh, but it is, all right! They have a com- 
fortable place to sleep. They get better food. 
The men in the trenches get the best food it's 
possible to give them, but it can't be cooked much, 
for there aren't facilities. The diet gets pretty 
monotonous. In the rest billets they get more 
variety. And they have plenty of free time, and 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 219 

there are hours when they can go to the estaminet 
— there's always one handy, a sort of pub, you 
know — and buy things for themselves. Oh, they 
have a pretty good time, as you'll see, in a rest 
billet." 

I had to take his word for it. We went bowling 
along at a good speed, but pretty soon we encoun- 
tered a detaclmient of Somerset men. They 
halted when they spied our caravan, and so did 
we. As usual they recognized us. 

''You'm Harry Lauder!" said one of them, in 
the broad accent of his country. ''Us has seen 
'ee often!" 

Johnson w^as out already, and he and the drivers 
were uniimbering the wee piano. It didn't take 
so long, now that we were getting used to the task, 
to make ready for a roadside concert. While I 
waited I talked to the men. They were on their 
way to Ypres. Tommy can't get the name right, 
and long ago ceased trying to do so. The French 
and Belgians call it "Eepre" — that's as near as I 
can give it to you in print, at least. But Tommy, 
as all the world must know by now, calls it Wipers, 
and that is another name that will live as long as 
British history is told. 

The Somerset men squatted in the road while 
I sang my songs for them, and gave me their most 
rapt attention. It was hugely gratifying and flat- 
tering, the silence that always descended upon an 
audience of soldiers when I sang. There were 



220 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

never any interruptions. But at the end of a song, 
and during the chorus, which they always wanted 
to sing with me, as I wanted them to do, too, they 
made up for their silence. 

Soon the Eeverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour 
was on its way again. The cheers of the Somerset 
men sounded gayly in our ears, and the cars 
quickly picked up speed and began to mop up the 
miles at a great rate. And then, suddenly — whoa ! 
We were in the midst of soldiers again. This 
time it was a bunch of motor repair men. 

They wandered along the roads, working on the 
trucks and cars that were abandoned when they 
got into trouble, and left along the side of the road. 
We had seen scores of such wrecks that day, and I 
had wondered if they were left there indefinitely. 
Far from it, as I learned now. Squads like this 
— there were two hundred men in this particular 
party — were always at work. Many of the cars 
they salvaged without difficulty — those that had 
been abandoned because of comparatively minor 
engine troubles or defects. Others had to be 
towed to a repair shop, or loaded upon other trucks 
for the journey, if their wheels were out of com- 
mission. 

Others still were beyond repair. They had been 
utterly smashed in a collision, maybe, or as a re- 
sult of skidding. Or they had burned. Some- 
times they had been knocked off the road and gen- 
erally demoralized by a shell. And in such cases, 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 221 

often, all that men such as these we had met now 
could do was to retrieve some parts to be used in 
repairing other cars in a less hopeless state. 

By this time Johnson and the two soldier 
chauffeurs had reduced the business of setting our 
stage to a fine point. It took us but a very few 
minutes indeed to be ready for a concert, and from 
the time when we sighted a potential audience to 
the moment for the opening number w^as an almost 
incredibly brief period. This time that was a 
good thing, for it was growing late. And so, al- 
though the repair men were loath to let me go, it 
was but an abbreviated programme that I was able 
to offer them. This was one of the most enthusi- 
astic audiences I had had yet, for nearly every 
man there, it turned out, had been what Americans 
would call a Harry Lauder fan in the old days. 
They had been wont to go again and again to hear 
me. I wanted to stay and sing more songs for 
them, but Captain Godfrey was in charge, and I 
had to obey his orders, reluctant though I was 
to go on. 

Our destination was a town called Aubigny — 
rather an old chateau just outside the town. 
Aubigny was the billet of the Fifteenth Division, 
then in rest. Many officers were quartered in the 
chateau, as the guests of its French owners, who 
remained in possession, having refused to clear 
out, despite the nearness of the actual fighting 
front. 



222 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

This was a Scots division, I was glad to find. 
I heard good Scots talk all around me when I 
arrived, and it was Scottish hospitality, mingled 
with French, that awaited us. I know no finer 
combination, nor one more w^arming to the cockles 
of a man's heart. 

Here there was luxury, compared to what I had 
seen that day. As Godfrey had warned me, the 
idea of resting that the troops had was a bit more 
strenuous than mine would be. There was no 
lying and lolling about. Hot though the weather 
was a deal of football was played, and there were 
games of one sort and another going on nearly all 
the time when the men were off duty. 

This division, I learned, had seen some of the 
hardest and bloodiest fighting of the whole war. 
They had been through the great offensive that 
had pivoted on Arras, and had been sorely knocked 
about. They had well earned such rest as was 
coming to them now, and they were getting ready, 
in the most cheerful way you can imagine, for 
their next tour of duty in the trenches. They 
knew about how much time they w^ould have, and 
they made the best use they could of it. 

New drafts w^ere coming out daily from home to 
fill up their sadly depleted ranks. The new men 
were quickly drawn in and assimilated into or- 
ganizations that had been reduced to mere skele- 
tons. New officers were getting acquainted with 
their men; that wonderful thing that is called 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 223 

esprit de corps was being made all around me. It 
is a great sight to watch it in the making ; it helps 
you to understand the victories our laddies have 
won. 

I was glad to see the kilted men of the Scots 
regiments all about me. It was them, after all, 
that I had come to see. I wanted to talk to them, 
and see them here, in France. I had seen them at 
hame, jflocking to the recruiting offices. I had seen 
them in their training camps. But this was differ- 
ent. I love all the soldiers of the Empire, but it 
is natural, is it no, that my warmest feeling should 
be for the laddies who wear the kilt. 

They were the most cheerful souls, as I saw them 
when we reached their rest camp, that you could 
imagine. They were laughing and joking all 
about us, and when they heard that the Rev- 
erend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour had arrived they 
crowded about us to see. They wanted to make 
sure that I was there, and I was greeted in all sorts 
of dialect that sounded enough, I'll be bound, to 
Godfrey and some of the rest of our party. There 
were even men who spoke to me in the Gaelic. 

I saw a good deal, afterward, of these Scots 
troops. My, how hard they did work while they 
rested! And what chances they took of broken 
bones and bruises in their play ! Ye would think, 
would ye no, that they had enough of that in the 
trenches, where they got lumps and bruises and 
sorer hurts in the run of duty! But no. So soon 



224. A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

as they came back to their rest billets they must 
begin to play by knocking the skin and the hair off 
one another at sports of various sorts, of which 
football was among the mildest, that are not by 
any means to be recommended to those of a deli- 
cate fiber. 

Some of the men I met at Aubigny had been out 
since Mons — some of the old kilted regiments of 
the old regular army, they were. Away back in 
those desperate days the Germans had dubbed 
them the ladies from Hell, on account of their kilts. 
Some of the Germans really thought they were 
women ! That was learned from prisoners. Since 
Mons they have been out, and auld Scotland has 
poured out men by the scores of thousands, as fast 
as they were needed, to fill the gaps the German 
shells and bullets have torn in the Scots ranks. 
Aye — since Mons, and they will be there at the 
finish, when it comes, please God! 

There have always been Scots regiments in the 
British army, ever since the day when King Jamie 
the Sixth, of Scotland, of the famous and unhappy 
house of Stuart, became King James the First of 
England. The kilted regiments, the Highlanders, 
belonging to the immortal Highland Brigade, in- 
clude the Gordon Highlanders, the Forty-second, 
the world famous Black Watch, as it is better 
known than by its numbered designation, the Sea- 
forth Highlanders, and the Argyle and Sutherland 
regiment, or the Princess Louise's Own. That 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 225 

\vas the regiment to a territorial battalion of 
which my boy John belonged at the outbreak 
of the war, and with which he served until he 
was killed. 

Some of those old, famous regiments have been 
wiped out half a dozen times, almost literally anni- 
hilated, since Mons. New drafts, and the addition 
of territorial battalions, have replenished them 
and kept up their strength, and the continuity of 
their tradition has never been broken. The men 
who compose a regiment may be wiped out, but 
the regiment survives. It is an Organization, an 
entity, a creature with a soul as well as a body. 
And the Germans have no discovered a way yet 
of killing the soul ! They can do dreadful things 
to the bodies of men and women, but their souls 
are safe from them. 

Of course there are Scots regiments that are not 
kilted and that have naught to do with the Hie- 
landers, who have given as fine and brave an ac- 
count of themselves as any. There are the Scots 
Guards, one of the regiments of the Guards 
Brigade, the very pick and flower of the British 
army. There are the King's Own Scottish Bor- 
derers, with as fine a history and tradition as any 
regiment in the army, and a record of service of 
which any regiment might well be proud; the 
Scots Fusiliers, the Eoyal Scots, the Scottish 
Rifles, and the Scots Greys, of Crimean fame — 
the only cavalry regiment from Scotland. 



226 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

Since this war began other Highland regiments 
have been raised beside those originally included 
in the Highland Brigade. There are Scots from 
Canada who wear the kilt and their own tartan and 
cap. Every Highland regiment, of course, has its 
own distinguishing tartan and cap. One of the 
proudest moments of my life came when I heard 
that the ninth battalion of the Highland Light 
Infantry, which was raised in Glasgow, but has 
its depot, where its recruits and new drafts are 
trained, at Hamilton, was known as the Harry 
Landers. That was because they had adopted the 
Balmoral cap, with dice, that had become asso- 
ciated with me because I had worn it so often and 
so long on the stage in singing one of my 
most famous and successful songs, *'I Love a 
Lassie." 

But in the trenches, of course, the Hieland 
troops all look alike. They cling to their kilts — 
or, rather, their kilts cling to them — but kilts and 
jackets are all of khaki. If they wore the bright 
plaids of the tartans they would be much too con- 
spicuous a mark for the Germans, and so they have 
to forswear their much loved colors when they are 
actually at grips with Fritz. 

I wear the kilt nearly always, myself, as I have 
said. Partly I do so because it is my native cos- 
tume, and I am proud of my Highland birth; 
partly because I revel in the comfort of the cos- 
tume. But it brings me some amusing experiences. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 227 

Very often I am asked a question that is, I pre- 
sume, fired at many a Hieland soldier, intimate 
though it is. 

'*I say, Harry," someone will ask me, ''you 
wear the kilt. Do you not wear anything under- 
neath it?" 

I do, myself. I wear a very short pair of 
trunks, chiefly for reasons of modesty. So do 
some of the soldiers. But if they do thej'^ must 
provide it for themselves; no such garment is 
served out to them with their uniform. And so 
the vast majority of the men wear nothing but 
their skins under the kilt. He is bare, that is, 
from the waist to the hose — except for the kilt. 
But that is garment enough! I'll tell ye so, and 
I'm thinkin' I know ! 

So clad the Highland soldier is a great deal more 
comfortable and a great deal more sanely dressed, 
I believe, than the city dweller who is trousered 
and underweared within an inch of his life. I 
think it is a matter of medical record, that can be 
verified from the reports of the army surgeons, 
that the kilted troops are among the healthiest in 
the whole army. I knoAv that the Highland troops 
are much less subject to abdominal troubles of all 
sorts — colic and the like. The kilt lies snug and 
warm around the stomach, in several thick layers, 
and a more perfect protection from the cold has 
never been devised for that highly delicate and 
susceptible region of the human anatomy. 



228 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

AVomen, particularly, are always asking me an- 
other question. I have seen them eyeing me, in 
cold weather, when I was walkin' around, comfort- 
ably, in my kilt. And their eyes would wander to 
my knees, and I would know before they opened 
their mouths what it was that they were going to 
say. 

* ' Oh, Mr. Lauder, ' ' they would ask me. * ' Don 't 
your poor knees get cold — ^with no coverings, ex- 
posed to this bitter cold?" 

Well, they never have ! That 's all I can tell you. 
They have had the chance, in all sorts of bitter 
weather. I am not thinking only of the compari- 
tively mild mnters of Britain — although, up north, 
in Scotland, we get some pretty severe winter 
weather. But I have been in Western Canada, 
and in the northwestern states of the United 
States, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, where 
the thermometer drops far below zero. And my 
knees have never been cold yet. They do not 
suffer from the cold any more than does my face, 
which is as little covered and protected as they 
— and for the same reason, I suppose. They are 
used to the weather. 

And w^hen it comes to the general question of 
health, I am certain, from my own experience, that 
the kilt is best. Several times, for one reason or 
another, I have laid my kilts aside and put on 
trousers. And each time I have been seized by 
\dolent colds, and my life has been made wretched. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 229 

A good many soldiers of my acquaintance have 
had the same experience. 

Practical reasons aside, however, the Scots 
soldier loves his kilt, and would fight like a steer 
to keep from having it taken away from him, 
should anyone be so foolish as to try such a per- 
formance. He loves it, not only because it is warm 
and comfortable, but because it is indistinguish- 
ably associated in his rriind with some of the most 
glorious pages of Scottish history. It is a sign 
and symbol of his hameland to him. There have 
been times, in Scotland, when all was not as peace- 
ful in the country's relations with England as it 
now is, when the loyal Scot who wore the kilt did 
so knowing that he might be tried for his life for 
doing so, since death had been the penalty ap- 
pointed for that ''crime." 

Aye, it is peace and friendship now between 
Scot and Englishman. But that is not to say 
that there is no a friendly rivalry between them 
still. English regiments and Scots regiments 
have a lot of fun with one another, and a bit rough 
it gets, too, at times. But it is all in fun, and there 
is no harm done. I have in mind a tale an officer 
told me — though the men of whom he told it did 
not know that an officer had any inkling of the 
story. 

The English soldiers are very fond of harping 
on the old idea of the difficulty of making a Scots- 
man see a joke. That is a base slander, I'll say, 



230 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

but no matter. There were two regiments in rest 
close to one another, one English and one Scots. 
They met at the estaminet or pub in the nearby 
town. And one day the Englishman put up a 
great joke on some of the Scots, and did get a 
little proof of that pet idea of theirs, for the Scots 
were slow to see the joke. 

Ah, weel, that was enough ! For days the Eng- 
lish rang the changes on that joke, teasing the Hie- 
landers and making sport of them. But at last, 
when the worst of the tormentors were all assem- 
bled together, two of the Scots came into the room 
where they were havin' a wee drappie. 

''Mon, Sandy," said one of them, shaking his 
head, ''I've been thinking what a sad thing that 
would be! I hope it will no come to pass." 

"Aye, that would be a sore business, indeed, 
Tam," said Sandy, and he, too, shook his head. 

And so they went on. The Englishmen stood it 
as long as they could and then one turned to 
Sandy. 

''What is it would be such a bad business!" he 
asked. 

''Mon-mon," said Sandy. ''We've been think- 
ing, Tam and I, what would become of England, 
should Scotland make a separate peace?" 

And it was generally conceded that the last 
laugh was with the Scots in that affair! 

My boy, John, had the same love for the kilt that 
I had. He was proud and glad to wear the kilt, 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE S31 

and to lead men who did the same. While he was 
in training at Bedford he organized a corps of 
cyclists for dispatch-bearing work. He was a 
crack cyclist himself, and it was a sport of which 
he was passionately fond. So he took a great in- 
terest in the corps, and it soon gained wide fame 
for its efficiency. So true was that that the au- 
thorities took note of the corps, and of John, who 
was responsible for it, and he was asked to go to 
France to take charge of organizing a similar 
corps behind the front. But that would have in- 
volved a transfer to a different branch of the 
army, and detachment from his regiment. And — 
it would have meant that he must doff his kilt. 
Since he had the chance to decline — it was an offer, 
not an order, that had come to him — he did, that 
he might keep his kilt and stay with his own 
men. 

To my eyes there is no spectacle that begins to 
be so imposing as the sight of a parade of Scottish 
troops in full uniform. And it is the unanimous 
testimony of German prisoners that this war has 
brought them no more terrifying sight than the 
charge of a kilted regiment. The Highlanders 
come leaping forward, their bayonets gleaming, 
shouting old battle cries that rang through the 
glens years and centuries ago, and that have come 
down to the descendants of the warriors of an 
ancient time. The Highlanders love to use cold 
steel ; the claymore was their old weapon, and the 



232 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

bayonet is its nearest equivalent in modern war. 
They are master hands with that, too — and the 
bayonet is the one thing the Hun has no stomach 
for at all. 

Fritz is brave enough when he is under such 
cover and shelter as the trenches give. And he 
has shown a sort of stubborn courage when attack- 
ing in massed formations — the Germans have 
made terrible sacrifices, at times, in their offensive 
efforts. But his blood turns to water in his veins 
when he sees the big braw laddies from the Hie- 
lands come swooping toward him, their kilts flap- 
ping and their bayonets shining in whatever light 
there is. Then he is mighty quick to throw up his 
hands and shout: "Kamerad! Kamerad!" 

I might go on all night telling you some of the 
stories I heard along the front about the Scottish 
soldiers. They illustrate and explain every phase 
of his character. They exploit his humor, despite 
that base slander to which I have already referred, 
his courage, his stoicism. And, of course, a vast 
fund of stories has sprung up that deals with the 
proverbial thrift of the Scot ! There was one tale 
that will bear repeating, perhaps. 

Two Highlanders had captured a chicken — a live 
chicken, not particularly fat, it may be, even a bit 
scrawny, but still, a live chicken. That was a 
prize, since the bird seemed to have no owner who 
might get them into trouble with the military 
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A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 233 

at once. But the other would have none of such a 
summary plan. 

''No, no, Jimmy," he said, pleadingly, holding 
the chicken protectingly. ''Let's keep her until 
morning, and may be we will ha ' an egg as well ! ' ' 

The other British soldiers call the Scots Jock, 
invariably. The Englishman, or a soldier from 
Wales or Ireland, as a rule, is called Tommy — 
after the well-known M. Thomas Atkins. Some- 
times, an Irishman will be Paddy and a Welsh- 
man Taffy. But the Scot is always Jock. 

Jock gave us a grand welcome at Aubigny. We 
were all pretty tired, but when they told me I could 
have an audience of seven thousand Scots soldiers 
I forgot my weariness, and Hogge, Adam and I, 
to say nothing of Johnson and the wee piano, 
cleared for action, as you might say. The concert 
was given in the picturesque grounds of the 
chateau, which had been less harshly treated by 
the war than many such beautiful old places. It 
was a great experience to sing to so many men ; it 
was far and away the largest house we had had 
since we had landed at Boulogne. 

After we left Aubigny, the chateau and that 
great audience, we drove on as quickly as we could, 
since it was now late, to the headquarters of Gen- 
eral Mac , commanding the Fifteenth Division 

— to which, of course, the men whom we had just 
been entertaining belonged. I was to meet the 
general upon my arrival. 



234 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

That was a strange ride. It was pitch dark, and 
we had some distance to go. There were mighty 
few lights in evidence ; you do not advertise a road 
to Fritz's airplanes when you are traveling roads 
anywhere near the front, for he has guns of long 
range, that can at times manage to strafe a road 
that is supposed to be beyond the zone of fire with 
a good deal of effect I have seldom seen a 
blacker night than that. Objects along the side of 
the road were nothing but shapeless lumps, and I 
did not see how our drivers could manage at all to 
find their way. 

They seemed to have no difficulty, however, but 
got along swimmingly. Indeed, they traveled 
faster than they had in daylight. Perhaps that 
was because we were not meeting troops to hold us 
up along this road; I believe that, if we had, we 
should have stopped and given them a concert, 
even though Johnson could not have seen the keys 
of his piano ! 

It was just as well, however. I was delighted 
at the reception that had been given to the Rever- 
end Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour all through our 
first day in France. But I was also extremely 
tired, and the dinner and bed that loomed up ahead 
of us, at the end of our long ride through the dark, 
took on an aspect of enchantment as we neared 
them. My voice, used as I was to doing a great 
deal of singing, was fagged, and Hogge and Dr. 
Adam were so hoarse that they could scarcely 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 235 

speak at all. Even Jolmson was pretty well done 
up ; he was still, theoretically, at least, on the sick 
list, of course. And I ha' no doot that the wee 
piano felt it was entitled to its rest, too ! 

So we were all mighty glad when the cars 
stopped at last. 

"Well, here w^e are!" said Ca:ptain Godfrey, 
who was the freshest of us all. ' * This is Trame- 
court — General Headquarters for the Reverend 
Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour while you are in 
France, gentlemen. They have special facilities 
for visitors here, and unless one of Fritz's air- 
planes feels disposed to drop a bomb or two, you 
won't be under fire, at night at least. Of course, 
in the daytime " 

He shrugged his shoulders. For our plans did 
not involve a search for safe places. Still, it was 
pleasant to know that we might sleep in fair com- 
fort. 

General Mac was waiting to welcome us, 

and told us that dinner was ready and waiting, 
which we were all glad to hear. It had been a 
long, hard day, although the most interesting one, 
by far, that I had ever spent. 

We made short w^ork of dinner, and soon after- 
ward they took us to our rooms. I don't know 
what Hogge and Dr. Adam did, but I know I looked 
happily at the comfortable bed that was in my 
room. And I slept easily and without being 
rocked to sleep that nicht ! 



CHAPTER XIX 

THOUGH we were out of the zone of fire — 
except for stray activities in which Boche 
airplanes might indulge themselves, as our 
hosts were frequently likely to remind us, lest we 
fancy ourselves too secure, I suppose — we were 
by no means out of hearing of the grim work that 
was going on a few miles away. The big guns, 
of course, are placed well behind the front line 
trenches, and we could hear their sullen, constant 
quarreling with Fritz and his artillery. The 
rumble of the Hun guns came to us, too. But 
that is a sound to which you soon get used, out 
there in France. You pay no more heed to it 
than you do to the noise the 'buses make in Lon- 
don or the trams in Glasgow. 

In the morning I got my first chance really to see 
Tramecourt. The chateau is a lovely one, a fine 
example of such places. It had not been knocked 
about at all, and it looked much as it must have 
done in times of peace. Practically all the old 
furniture was still in the rooms, and there were 
some fine old pictures on the walls that it gave me 
great delight to see. Indeed, the rare old atmos- 
phere of the chateau was restful and delightful in 
a way that surprised me. 

236 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 237 

I had been in the presence of real war for just 
one day. And yet I took pleasure in seeing again 
the comforts and some of the luxuries of peace! 
That gave me an idea of what this sort of place 
must mean to men from the trenches. It must 
seem like a bit of heaven to them to come back to 
Aubigny or Tramecourt! Think of the contrast. 

The chateau, which had been taken over by the 
British army, belonged to the Comte de Chabot, or, 
rather, to his wife, who had been Marquise de 
Tramecourt, one of the French families of the old 
regime. Although the old nobility of France has 
ceased to have any legal existence under the Re- 
public the old titles are still used as a matter of 
courtesy, and they have a real meaning and value. 
This was a pleasant place, this chateau of Trame- 
court ; I should like to see it again in days of peace, 
for then it must be even more delightful than it 
was when I came to know it so well. 

Tramecourt was to be our home, the headquar- 
ters of the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour, 
during the rest of our stay at the front. We were 
to start out each morning, in the cars, to cover 
the ground appointed for that day, and to return' 
at night. But it was understood that there would 
be days when we would get too far away to return 
at night, and other sleeping quarters would be 
provided on such occasions. 

I grew very fond of the place while I was there. 
The steady pounding of the guns did not disturb 



238 A ]\riNSTREL IN FRANCE 

my peace of nights, as a rule. But there was one 
night Avhen I did lie awake for hours, listening. 
Even to my unpracticed ear there w^as a different 
quality in the sound of the cannon that night. It 
had a fury, an intensity, that went beyond any- 
thing I had heard. And later I learned that I 
had made no mistake in thinking that there was 
something unusual and portentous about the fire 
that night. What I had listened to was the pre- 
liminary drum fire and bombardment that pre- 
pared the way for the great attack at Messines, 
near Ypres — the most terrific bombardment re- 
corded in all history, up to that time. 

The fire that night was like a guttural chant. 
It had a real rhythm ; the beat of the guns could 
almost be counted. And at dawn there came the 
terrific explosion of the great mine that had been 
prepared, which was the signal for the charge. 
Mr. Lloyd-George, I am told, knowing the exact 
moment at which the mine was to be exploded, 
was awake, at home in England, and heard it, 
across the channel, and so did many folk who did 
not have his exceptional sources of information. 
I was one of them ! And I wondered greatly until 
I was told what had been done. That was one of 
the most brilliantly and successfully executed 
attacks of the whole war, and vastly important in 
its results, although it was, compared to the great 
battles on the Somme and up north, near Arras, 
only a small and minor operation. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 239 

We settled down, very quickly indeed, into a 
regular routine. Captain Godfrey was, for all the 
world, like the manager of a traveling company in 
America. He mapped out our routes, and he took 
care of all the details. No troupe, covering a long 
route of one night stands in the Western or South- 
ern United States, ever worked harder than did 
Hogge, Adam and I — to say nothing of Godfrey 
and our soldier chauffeurs. We did not lie abed 
late in the mornings, but were up soon after day- 
light. Breakfast out of the way, we would find 
the cars waiting and be off. 

We had, always, a definite route mapped out for 
the day, but we never adhered to it exactly. I was 
still particularly pleased with the idea of giving 
a roadside concert whenever an audience ap- 
peared, and there was no lack of willing listeners. 
Soon after we had set out from Tramecourt, no 
matter in which direction we happened to be 
going, we were sure to run into some body of 
soldiers. 

There was no longer any need of orders. As 
soon as the chauffeur of the leading car spied a 
blotch of khaki against the road, on went his 
brakes, and we would come sliding into the midst 
of the troops and stop. Johnson would be out 
before his car had fairly stopped, and at work 
upon the lashings of the little piano, with me to 
help him. And Hogge would already be clearing 
his throat to begin his speech. ^ 



24<0 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

The Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour, em- 
ployed no press agent, and it could not boast of 
a bill poster. No boardings were covered with 
great colored sheets advertising its coming. And 
yet the whole front seemed to know that we were 
about. The soldiers we met along the roads wel- 
comed us gladly, but they were no longer, after 
the first day or two, surprised to see us. They 
acted, rather, as if they had been expecting us. 
Our advent was like that of a circus, coming to a 
country town for a long heralded and advertised 
engagement. Yet all the puffing that we got was 
by word of mouth. 

There were some wonderful choruses along 
those war-worn roads wo traveled. "Eoamin' in 
the Gloamin' " was still my featured song, and all 
the soldiers seemed to know the tune and the 
words, and to take a particular delight in coming 
in mth me as I swung into the chorus. We never 
passed a detachment of soldiers without stopping 
to give them a concert, no matter how it disar- 
ranged Captain Godfrey's plans. But he was en- 
tirely willing. It was these men, on their way to 
the trenches, or on the way out of them, bound 
for rest billets, whom, of course, I was most 
anxious to reach, since I felt that they were the 
ones I was most likely to be able to help and 
cheer up. 

The scheduled concerts were practically all at 
the various rest billets we visited. These were, 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 241 



in the main, at chateaux. Always, at such a place, 
I had a double audience. The soldiers would 
make a great ring, as close to me as they could 
get, and around them, again, in a sort of outer 
circle, were French villagers and peasants, vastly 
puzzled and mystified, but eager to be pleased, and 
very ready with their applause. 

It must have been hard for them to make up 
their minds about me, if they gave me much 
thought. My kilt confused them; most of them 
thought I Avas a soldier from some regiment they 
had not yet seen, wearing a new and strange 
uniform. For my kilt, I need not say, was 
not military, nor was the rest of my garb 
warlike ! 

I gave, during that time, as many as seven con- 
certs in a day. I have sung as often as thirty-five 
times in one day, and on such occasions I was 
thankful that I had a strong and durable voice, 
not easily worn out, as well as a stout physique. 
Hogge and Dr. Adam appeared as often as I did, 
but they didn't have to sing! 

Nearly all the songs I gave them were ditties 
they had known for a long time. The one excep- 
tion was the tune that had been so popular in 
** Three Cheers" — the one called "The Laddies 
Who Fought and Won." Few of the boys had 
been home since I had been singing that song, but 
it has a catching lilt, and they were soon able to 
join in the chorus and send it thundering along. 



242 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

They took to it, too — and well they might ! It was 
of such as they that it was written. 

We covered perhaps a hundred miles a day 
during this period. That does not sound like a 
great distance for high-powered motor cars, but 
we did a good deal of stopping, you see, here and 
there and everywhere. We were roaming around 
in the backwater of war, you might say. We were 
out of the main stream of carnage, but it was not 
out of our minds and our hearts. Evidences of it 
in plenty came to us each day. And each day we 
were a little nearer to the front line trenches than 
we had come the day before. We were working 
gradually toward that climax that I had been 
promised. 

I was always eager to talk to officers and men, 
and I found many chances to do so. It seemed to 
me that I could never learn enough about the sol- 
diers. I listened avidly to every story that was 
told to me, and was always asking for more. The 
younger officers, especially, it interested me to 
talk with. One day I was talking to such a lieu- 
tenant. 

''How is the spirit of your men?" I asked him. 

I am going to teU you his answer, just as he 
made it. 

' * Their spirit ? " he said, musingly. ' ' Well, just 
before we came to this billet to rest we were in 
a tightish corner on the Somme. One of my 
youngest men was hit — a shell came near to tak- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 243 

ing his arm clean off, so that it was left just 
hanging to his shoulders. He was only about 
eighteen years old, poor chap. It was a bad 
wound, but, as sometimes happens, it didn't make 
him unconscious — then. And when he realized 
what had happened to him, and saw his arm hang- 
ing limp, so that he could know he was bound to 
lose it, he began to cry. 

'' 'What's the trouble T I asked him, hurrying 
over to him. I was sorry enough for him, but 
you've got to keep up the morale of your men. 
* Soldiers don't cry when they're wounded, my 
lad.' 

'* 'I'm not crying because I'm wounded, sir!' 
he fired back at me. And I won't say he was quite 
as respectful as a private is supposed to be when 
he's talking to an officer! 'Just take a look at 
that, sir!' And he pointed to his wound. And 
then he cried out : 

" 'And I haven't killed a German yet!' he said, 
bitterly. 'Isn't that hard lines, sir?' 

"That is the spirit of my men!" 

I made many good friends while I was roaming 
around the country just behind the front. I won- 
der how many of them I shall keep — how many of 
them death will spare to shake my hand again 
when peace is restored! There was a Gordon 
Highlander, a fine young officer, of whom I be- 
came particularly fond while I was at Trame- 
court. I had a very long talk with him, and I 



244 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

thought of him often, afterward, because he made 
me think of John. He was just such a fine young 
type of Briton as my boy had been. 

Months later, when I was back in Britain, and 
giving a performance at Manchester, there was a 
knock at the door of my dressing-room. 

''Come in!" I called. 

The door was pushed open and a man came in 
with great blue glasses covering his eyes. He had 
a stick, and he groped his way toward me. I did 
not know him at all at first — and then, suddenly, 
with a shock, I recognized him as my fine young 
Gordon Highlander of the rest billet near Trame- 
court. 

"My God — it's you, Mac!" I said, deeply 
shocked. 

"Yes," he said, quietly. His voice had changed, 
greatly. "Yes, it's I, Harry." 

He was almost totally blind, and he did not 
knoAV whether his eyes would get better or worse. 

"Do you remember all the lads you met at the 
billet where you came to sing for us the first time 
I met you, Harry T' he asked me. "Well, they're 
all gone — I'm the only one who's left — the only 
one ! ' ' 

There was grief in his voice. But there was 
nothing like complaint, nor was there, nor self- 
pity, either, when he told me about his eyes and 
his doubts as to whether he would ever really see 
again. He passed his own troubles off lightly, as 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 245 

if they did not matter at all. He preferred to tell 
me about those of his friends whom I had met, 
and to give me the story of how this one and that 
one had gone. And he is like many another. I 
know a great many men who have been maimed 
in the war, but I have still to hear one of them 
complain. They were brave enough, God knows, 
in battle, but I think they are far braver when 
thej^ come home, shattered and smashed, and do 
naught but smile at their troubles. 

The only sort of complaining you hear from 
British soldiers is over minor discomforts in the 
field. Tommy and Jock will grouse when they 
are so disposed. They will grow^l about the food 
and about this trivial trouble and that. But it 
is never about a really serious matter that you 
hear them talking ! 

I have never yet met a man who had been per- 
manently disabled who was not grieving because 
he could not go back. And it is strange but true 
that men on leave get homesick for the trenches 
sometimes. They miss the companionships they 
have had in the trenches. I think it must be be- 
cause all the best men in the world are in France 
that they feel so. But it is true, I know, because 
I have not heard it once, but a dozen times. 

Men will dream of home and Blighty for weeks 
and months. They will grouse because they can- 
not get leave — though, half the time, they have 
not even asked for it, because they feel that their 



246 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

place is where the fighting is! And then, when 
they do get that longed-for leave, they are half 
sorry to go — and they come back like boys coming 
home from school ! 

A great reward awaits the men who fight 
through this war and emerge alive and triumphant 
at its end. They will dictate the conduct of the 
world for many a year. The men who stayed at 
home when they should have gone may as well 
prepare to drop.their voices to a very low whisper 
in the affairs of mankind. For the men who will 
be heard, who will make themselves heard, are 
out there in France. 



CHAPTER XX 

IT was seven o 'clock in the morning of a Godly 
and a beautiful day when we set out from 
Tramecourt for Arras. Arras, that town so 
famous now in British history and in the annals 
of this war, had been one of our principal objec- 
tives from the outset, but we had not known when 
we were to see it. Arras had been the pivot of 
the great northern drive in the spring — the drive 
that Hindenburg had fondly supposed he had 
spoiled by his ''strategic" retreat in the region of 
the Somme, begun just before the British and the 
French were ready to attack. 

What a bonnie morning that was, to be sure I 
The sun was out, after some rainy days, and glad 
we all were to see it. The land waL sprayed with 
silver light ; the air was as sweet and as soft and 
as warm as a baby's breath. And the cars seemed 
to leap forward, as if they, too, loved the day and 
the air. They ate up the road. They seemed to 
take hold of its long, smooth surface — they are 
grand roads, over yon, in France — and reel it up 
in underneath their wheels as if it were a tape. 

This time we did little stopping, no matter how 
good the reason looked. We went hurtling through 
villages and towns we had not seen before. Our 

247 



248 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

horn and our siren shrieked a warning as we shot 
through. And it seemed wrong. They looked so 
peaceful and so quiet, did those French towns, on 
that summer's morning! Peaceful, aye, and lan- 
guorous, after all the bustle and haste we had 
been seeing. The houses were set in pretty en- 
casements of bright foliage and they looked as 
though they had been painted against the back- 
ground of the landscape with water colors. 

It was hard to believe that war had passed that 
way. It had ; there were traces everywhere of its 
grim visitation. But here its heavy hand had 
been laid lightly upon town and village. It was 
as if a wave of poison gas of the sort the Germans 
brought into war had been turned aside by a 
friendly breeze, arising in the very nick of time. 
Little harm had been done along the road we trav- 
eled. But the thunder of the guns was always in 
our ears; we could hear the steady, throbbing 
rhythm of the cannon, muttering away to the 
north and east. 

It was very warm, and so, after a time, as we 
passed through a village, someone — Hogge, I 
think — suggested that a bottle of ginger beer all 
around would not be amiss. The idea seemed to 
be regarded as an excellent one, so Godfrey spoke 
to the chauffeur beside him, and we stopped. We 
had not known, at first, that there were troops in 
town. But there were — Highlanders. And they 
came swarming out. I was recognized at once. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 249 

*'Well, here's old Harry Lauder!" cried one 
braw laddie. 

''Come on, Harry — gie us a song!" they 
shouted. "Let's have 'Roamin' in the Gloamin', 
Harry! Gie us the Bonnie Lassie! We ha' na' 
heard 'The Laddies Who Fought and Won,' 
Harry. They tell us that's a braw song!" 

We were not really supposed to give any road- 
side concerts that day, but how was I to resist 
them! So we pulled up into a tiny side street, 
just off the market square, and I sang several 
songs for them. We saved time by not unlimber- 
ing the wee piano, and I sang, without accompani- 
ment, standing up in the car. But they seemed 
to be as well pleased as though I had had the 
orchestra of a big theater to support me, and all 
the accompaniments and trappings of the stage. 
They were very loath to let me go, and I don't 
know how much time we really saved by not giv- 
ing our full and regular programme. For, before 
I had done, they had me telling stories, too. 
Captain Godfrey was smiling, but he was glanc- 
ing at his watch too, and he nudged me, at last, 
and made me realize that it was time for us to 
go on, no matter how interesting it might be to 
stay. 

"I'll be good," I promised, with a grin, as we 
drove on. "We shall go straight on to Arras 
now ! ' ' 

But we did not. We met a bunch of engineers 



250 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

on the road, after a space, and they looked so 
wistful when we told them we maun be getting 
right along, without stopping to sing for them, 
that I had not the heart to disappoint them. So 
we got out the wee piano and I sang them a few 
songs. It seemed to mean so much to those boys 
along the roads! I think they enjoyed the con- 
certs even more than did the great gatherings 
that were assembled for me at the rest camps. A 
concert was more of a surprise for them, more 
of a treat. The other laddies liked them, too — 
aye, they liked them fine. But they would have 
been prepared, sometimes ; they would have been 
looking forward to the fun. And the laddies 
along the roads took them as a man takes a grand 
bit of scenery, coming before his eyes, suddenly, 
as he turns a bend in a road he does not ken. 

As for myself, I felt that I was becoming quite 
a proficient open-air performer by now. My 
voice was standing the strain of singing under 
such novel and difficult conditions much better 
than I had thought it could. And I saw that I 
must be at heart and by nature a minstrel! I 
know I got more pleasure from those concerts 
I gave as a minstrel wandering in France than 
did the soldiers or any of those who heard me ! 

I have been before the public for many years. 
Applause has always been sweet to me. It is to 
any artist, and when one tells you it is not you 
may set it down in your hearts that he or she is 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 251 

telling less than the truth. It is the breath of life 
to us to know that folks are pleased by what we 
do for them. Why else would we go on about our 
tasks? I have had much applause. I have had 
many honors. I have told you about that great 
and overwhelming reception that greeted me when 
I sailed into Sydney Harbor. In Britain, in 
America, I have had greetings that have brought 
tears into my eye and such a lump into my throat 
that until it had gone down I could not sing or say 
a word of thanks. 

But never has applause sounded so sweet to 
me as it did along those dusty roads in France, 
with the poppies gleaming red and the corn- 
flowers blue through the yellow fields of grain 
beside the roads! They cheered me, do you ken 
— those tired and dusty heroes of Britain along 
the French roads ! They cheered as they squatted 
down in a circle about us, me in my kilt, and 
Johnson tinkling away as if his very life depended 
upon it, at his wee piano! Ah, those wonderful, 
wonderful soldiers! The tears come into my 
eyes, and my heart is sore and heavy within me 
when I think that mine was the last voice many 
of them ever heard lifted in song ! They were on 
their way to the trenches, so many of those lad- 
dies who stopped for a song along the road. And 
when men are going into the trenches they know, 
and all who see them passing know, that some 
there are who will never come out. 



252 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

Despite all the interruptions, though, it was not 
much after noon when we reached Blangy, Here, 
in that suburb of Arras, were the headquarters 
of the Ninth Division, and as I stepped out of the 
car I thrilled to the knowledge that I was tread- 
ing ground forever to be famous as the starting- 
point of the Highland Brigade in the attack of 
April 9, 1917. 

And now I saw Arras, and, for the first time, 
a town that had been systematically and ruth- 
lessly shelled. There are no words in any tongue 
I know to give you a fitting picture of the devasta- 
tion of Arras. ''Awful" is a puny word, a thin 
one, a feeble one. I pick impotently at the cover- 
lid of my imagination when I try to frame lan- 
guage to make you understand what it was I saw 
when I came to Arras on that bright June day. 

I think the old city of Arras should never be 
rebuilt. I doubt if it can be rebuilt, indeed. But 
I think that, whether or no, a golden fence should 
be built around it, and it should forever and for 
all time be preserved as a monument to the wan- 
ton wickedness of the Hun. It should serve and 
stand, in its stark desolation, as a tribute, dedi- 
cated to the Kultur of Germany. No painter 
could depict the frightfulness of that city of the 
dead. No camera could make you see as it is. 
Only your eyes can do that for you. And even 
then you cannot realize it all at once. Your eyes 
are more merciful than the truth and the Hun. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 253 

The Germans shelled Arras long after there 
was any military reason for doing so. The sheer, 
wanton love of destruction must have moved 
them. They had destroyed its military useful- 
ness, but still they poured shot and shell into the 
town. I went through its streets — the Germans 
had been pushed back so far by then that the city 
was no longer under steady fire. But they had 
done their work ! 

Nobody was living in Arras. No one could 
have lived there. The houses had been smashed 
to pieces. The pavements were dust and rubble. 
But there was life in the city. Through the ruins 
our men moved as ceaselessly and as restlessly as 
the tenants of an ant hill suddenly upturned by 
a plowshare. Soldiers were every^vhere, and 
guns — guns, guns ! For Arras had a new impor- 
tance now. It was a center for many roads. 
Some of the most important supply roads of this 
sector of the front converged in Arras. 

Trains of ammunition trucks, supply carts and 
wagons of all sorts, great trucks laden with jam 
and meat and flour, all were passing every mo- 
ment. There was an incessant din of horses ' feet 
and the steady crunch — crunch of heavy boots as 
the soldiers marched through the rubble and the 
brickdust. And I knew that all this had gone on 
while the town was still under fire. Indeed, even 
now, an occasional shell from some huge gun came 
crashing into the to^vn, and there would be a new 



254 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

cloud of dust arising to mark its landing, a new 
collapse of some weakened wall. Warning signs 
were everywhere about, bidding all who saw them 
to beware of the imminent collapse of some heap 
of masonry. 

I saw what the Germans had left of the stately 
old Cathedral, and of the famous Cloth Hall — one 
of the very finest examples of the guild halls of 
medieval times. Goths — Vandals — no, it is unfair 
to seek such names for the Germans. They 
have established themselves as the masters of all 
time in brutality and in destruction. There is no 
need to call them anything but Germans. The 
Cloth Hall was almost human in its pitiful appeal 
to the senses and the imagination. The German 
fire had picked it to pieces, so that it stood in a 
stark outline, like some carcase picked bare by a 
vulture. 

Our soldiers who were quartered nearby lived 
outside the town in huts. They were the men of 
the Highland Brigade, and the ones I had hoped 
and wished, above all others, to meet when I came 
to France. They received our party with the 
greatest enthusiasm, and they were especially 
flattering when they greeted me. One of the 
Highland officers took me in hand immediately, 
to show me the battlefield. 

The ground over which we moved had literally 
been churned by shell-fire. It was neither dirt 
nor mud that we walked upon; it was a sort of 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE S55 

powder. The very soil had been decomposed into 
a fine dust by the terrific pounding it had re- 
ceived. The dust rose and got into our eyes and 
mouths and nostrils. There was a lot of sneez- 
ing among the members of the Reverend Harry 
Lauder, M.P., Tour that day at Arras ! And the 
wire! It was strewn in every direction, with 
seeming aimlessness. Heavily barbed it was, and 
bad stuff to get caught in. One of the great 
reasons for the preliminary bombardment that 
usually precedes an attack is to cut this wire. If 
charging men are caught in a bad tangle of wire 
they can be wiped out by machine gun-fire before 
they can get clear. 

I asked a Highlander, one day, how long he 
thought the war would last. 

"Forty years," he said, never batting an eye- 
lid. "We'll be fighting another year, and then 
it'll tak us thirty-nine years more to wind up all 
the wire!" 

Off to my right there was a network of steel 
strands, and as I gazed at it I saAv a small dark 
object hanging from it and fluttering in the 
breeze. I was curious enough to go over, and I 
picked my way carefully through the maze-like 
network of wire to see wiiat it might be. When 
I came close I saw it was a bit of cloth, and imme- 
diately I recognized the tartan of the Black 
Watch — the famous Forty-second. Mud and blood 
held that bit of cloth fastened to the wire, as if 



256 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

by a cement. Plainly, it had been torn from a 
kilt. 

I stood for a moment, looking do^vn at that bit 
of tartan, flapping in the soft summer breeze. 
And as I stood I could look out and over the 
landscape, dotted with a very forest of little 
wooden crosses, that marked the last resting-place 
of the men who had charged across this maze of 
wire and died within it. They rose, did those 
rough crosses, like sheathed swords out of the 
wild, luxurious jungle of grass that had grown up 
in that blood-drenched soil. I wondered if the 
owner of the bit of tartan were still safe or if he 
lay under one of the crosses that I saw. 

There was room for sad speculation here! 
"Who had he been ? Had he swept on, leaving that 
bit of his kilt as evidence of his passing? Had 
he been one of those who had come through the 
attack, gloriously, to victory, so that he could 
look back upon that day so long as he lived? Or 
was he dead — ^perhaps within a hundred yards of 
where I stood and gazed down at that relic of 
him? Had he folks at hame in Scotland who had 
gone through days of anguish on his account — 
such days of anguish as I had known? 

I asked a soldier for some wire clippers, and I 
cut the wire on either side of that bit of tartan, 
and took it, just as it was. And as I put the wee 
bit of a brave man's kilt away I kissed the blood- 











u\ 


:;'^<r'^ ^ 


" 




■' 


V 


\ -— - 



*:^t' 



! \ 




Berlin struck off 
this medal when the 
"Lusitania"was siink : 
on one side the brutal 
catastrophe, on the 
other the grinning 
death's head Teuton- 
ieally exultant. "And 
so now I preach the 
war on the Hun my 
own way," says Harry 
Lauder. 



Harry Lauder 
" Laird of Dunoon." 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 257 

stained tartan, for Auld Lang Syne, and thought 
of what a tale it could tell if it could only 
speak! 

*'Ha' ye seen a' the men frae the braes and the glen, 
Ha' ye seen them a' marehin' awa'? 
Ha' ye seen a' the men frae the wee but-an'-beu, 
And the gallants frae mansion and ha'?" 

I have said before that I do not want to tell 
you of the tales of atrocities that I heard in 
France. I heard plenty — aye^ and terrible they 
were! But I dinna wish to harrow the feelings 
of those who read more than I need, and I will 
leave that task to those who saw for themselves 
with their eyes, when I had but my ears to serve 
me. Yet there was one blood-chilling story that 
my boy John told to me, and that the finding of 
that bit of Black Watch tartan brings to my mind. 
He told it to me as we sat before the fire in my 
wee hoose at Dunoon, just a few nights before he 
went back to the front for the last time. We were 
talking of the war — what else was there to talk 
aboot? 

It was seldom that John touched on the harsher 
things he knew about the war. He preferred, as 
a rule, to tell me stories of the courage and the 
devotion of his men, and of the light way that 
they turned things when there was so much chance 
for grief and care. 

**One night. Dad," he said, '*we had a battalion 



258 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

of the Black Watch on our right, and they made a 
pretty big raid on the German trenches. It devel- 
oped into a sizable action for any other war, but 
one trifling enough and unimportant in this one. 
The Germans had been readier than the Black 
Watch had supposed, and had reinforcements 
ready, and sixty of the Highlanders were cap- 
tured. The Germans took them back into their 
trenches, and stripped them to the skin. Not a 
stitch or a rag of clothing did they leave them, 
and, though it was April, it was a bitter night, 
with a wind to cut even a man warmly clad to the 
bone. 

"All night they kept them there, standing at 
attention, stark naked, so that they were half- 
frozen when the gray, cold light of the dawn be- 
gan to show behind them in the east. And then the 
Germans laughed, and told their prisoners to go. 

" 'Go on — go back to your own trenches, as you 
are!' they said. 

' ' The laddies of the Black Watch could scarcely 
believe their ears. There was about seventy-five 
yards between the two trench lines at that point, 
and the No Man's Land was rough going — all 
shell-pitted as it was. By that time, too, of 
course, German repair parties had mended all the 
wire before their trenches. So they faced a rough 
journej^, all naked as they were. But they 
started. 

**They got through the wire, with the Germans 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 259 

laughing fit to kill themselves at the sight of the 
streaks of blood showing on their white skins as 
the wire got in its work. They laughed at them, 
Dad! And then, when they were halfway across 
the No Man's Land they understood, at last, why 
the Germans had let them go. For fire was 
opened on them with machine guns. Everyone 
was mowed down — everyone of those poor, naked, 
bleeding lads was killed — murdered by that treach- 
erous fire from behind! 

"We heard all the details of that dirty bit of 
treachery later. We captured some German pris- 
oners from that very trench. Fritz is a decent 
enough sort, sometimes, and there were men there 
whose stomachs were turned by that sight, so that 
they were glad to creep over, later, and surrender. 
They told us, with tears in their eyes. But we 
had known, before that. We had needed no wit- 
nesses except the bodies of the boys. It had been 
too dark for the men in our trenches to see what 
was going on — and a burst of machine gun-fire, 
along the trenches, is nothing to get curious or 
excited about. But those naked bodies, lying 
there in the No Man's Land, had told us a good 
deal. 

' ' Dad — that was an awful sight ! I was in com- 
mand of one of the burying parties we had to 
send out." 

That w^as the tale I thought of when I found 
that bit of the Black Watch tartan. And I remem- 



260 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

bered, too, that it was with the Black Watch that 
John Poe, the famous American football player 
from Princeton, met his death in a charge. He 
had been offered a commission, but he preferred 
to stay with the boys in the ranks. 



CHAPTER XXI 

WE left our motor cars behind us in Arras, 
for to-day we were to go to a front-line 
trench, and the climax of my whole trip, 
so far as I could foresee, was at hand. Johnson 
and the wee piano had to stay behind, too — ^we 
could not expect to carry even so tiny an instru- 
ment as that into a front-line trench ! Once more 
we had to don steel helmets, but there was a great 
difference between these and the ones we had had 
at Vimy Ridge. Mine fitted badly, and kept sliding 
down over my ears, or else slipping way down to 
the back of my head. It must have given me a 
grotesque look, and it was most uncomfortable. 
So I decided I would take it off and carry it for a 
while. 

''You'd better keep it on, Harry," Captain 
Godfrey ad^4sed me. ''This district is none too 
safe, even right here, and it gets worse as we go 
along. A whistling Percy may come along look- 
ing for you any minute." 

That is the name of a shell that is good enough 
to advertise its coming by a whistling, shrieking 
sound. I could hear Percies whistling all around, 
and see them spattering up the ground as they 

261 



262 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

struck, not so far away, but they did not seem to 
be coming in our direction. So I decided I would 
take a chance. 

''Well," I said, as I took the steel hat off, ''I'll 
just keep this bonnet handy and slip it on if I see 
Percy coming." 

But later I was mighty glad of even an ill-fitting 
steel helmet ! 

Several staff officers from the Highland Bri- 
gade had joined the Reverend Harry Lauder, 
M.P., Tour by now. Affable, pleasant gentlemen 
they were, and very eager to show us all there 
was to be seen. And they had more sights to show 
their visitors than most hosts have ! 

We were on ground now that had been held by 
the Germans before the British had surged for- 
ward all along this line in the April battle. Their 
old trenches, abandoned now, ran like deep fis- 
sures through the soil. They had been pretty 
well blasted to pieces by the British bombard- 
ment, but a good many of their deep, concrete 
dugouts had survived. These were not being 
used by the British here, but were saved in good 
repair as show places, and the officers who were 
our guides took us down into some of them. 

Rarely comfortable they must have been, too! 
They had been the homes of German officers, and 
the Hun officers did themselves very well indeed 
when they had the chance. They had electric 
light in their cave houses. To be sure they had 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 263^ 

used German wall paper, and atrociously ugly 
stuff it was, too. But it pleased their taste, no 
doubt. Mightily amazed some of Fritz's officers 
must have been, back in April, as they sat and 
took their ease in these luxurious quarters, to 
have Jock come tumbling in upon them, a grenade 
in each hand ! 

Our men might have used these dugouts, and 
been snug enough in them, but they preferred air 
and ventilation, and lived in little huts above the 
ground. I left our party and went around among 
them and, to my great satisfaction, found, as I 
had been pretty sure I would, a number of old 
acquaintances and old admirers who came crowd- 
ing around me to shake hands. I made a great 
collection of souvenirs here, for they insisted on 
pressing trophies upon me. 

*'Tak them, Harry," said one after another. 
"We can get plenty more where they came 
from ! ' ' 

One laddie gave me a helmet with a bullet hole 
through the skip, and another presented me with 
one of the most interesting souvenirs of all I car- 
ried home from France. That was a German 
sniper's outfit. It consisted of a suit of overalls, 
waterproofed. If a man had it on he would be 
completely covered, from head to foot, with just 
a pair of slits for his eyes to peep out of, and 
another for his mouth, so that he could breathe. 
It was cleverly painted the color of a tree — part 



264 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

of it like the bark, part green, like leaves sprout- 
ing from it. 

"Eh, Jock," I asked the laddie who gave it to 
me. "A thing like yon's hard to be getting, I'm 
thinking?" 

''Oh, not so very hard," he answered, care- 
lessly. ''You've got to be a good shot." And he 
wore medals that showed he was! "All you've 
got to do, Harry, is to kill the chap inside it be- 
fore he kills you! The fellow who used to own 
that outfit you've got hid himself in the fork of 
a tree, and, as you may guess, he looked like a 
branch of the tree itself. He was pretty hard to 
spot. But I got suspicious of him, from the way 
bullets were coming over steadily, and I decided 
that that tree hid a sniper. 

"After that it was just a question of being pa- 
tient. It was no so long before I was sure, and 
then I waited — ^until I saw that branch move as 
no branch of a tree ever did move. I fired then 
— and got him! He was away outside of his lines, 
and that nicht I slipped out and brought back this 
outfit. I wanted to see how it was made." 

An old, grizzled sergeant of the Black Watch 
gave me a German revolver. 

"How came you to get this?" I asked him. 

"It was an acceedent, Harry," he said. "We 
were raiding a trench, do you ken, and I was in 
a sap when a German officer came along, and we 
bumped into one another. He looked at me, and 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 265 

I at him. I think he was goin' to say something, 
but I dinna ken what it was he had on his mind. 
That was his revolver you've got in your hand 
now." 

And then he thrust his hand into his pocket. 

"Here's the watch he used to carry, too," he 
said. It was a thick, fat-bellied affair, of solid 
gold. "It's a bit too big, but it's a rare good 
timekeeper." 

Soon after that an officer gave me another 
trophy that is, perhaps, even more interesting 
than the sniper's suit. It is rarer, at least. It is 
a small, sweet-toned bell that used to hang in a 
wee church in the small village of Athies, on the 
Scarpe, about a mile and a half from Arras. The 
Germans wiped out church and village, but in 
some odd way they found the bell and saved it. 
They hung it in their trenches, and it was used 
to sound a gas alarm. On both sides a signal is 
given when the sentry sees that there is to be a 
gas attack, in order that the men may have time 
to don the clumsy gas masks that are the only 
protection against the deadly fumes. The wee 
bell is eight inches high, maybe, and I have never 
heard a lovelier tone. 

' ' That bell has rung men to worship, and it has 
rung them to death," said the officer who gave it 
to me. 

Presently I was called back to my party, after 
I had spent some time with the lads in their huts. 



^Q6 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

A general had joined the party now, and he told 
me, with a smile, that I was to go up to the 
trenches, if I cared to do so. I will not say I was 
not a bit nervous, hut I was glad to go, for a ' that ! 
It was the thing that had brought me to France, 
after a'. 

So we started, and by now I was glad to wear 
my steel hat, fit or no fit. I was to give an enter- 
tainment in the trenches, and so we set out. Pretty 
soon I was climbing a steep railroad embank- 
ment, and when we slid down on the other side we 
found the trenches — ^wide, deep gaps in the earth, 
and all alive with men. We got into the trenches 
themselves by means of ladders, and the soldiers 
came swarming about me with yells of ''Hello, 
Harry! Welcome, Harry!" 

They were told that I had come to sing for 
them, and so, with no further preliminaries, I be- 
gan my concert. I started with my favorite open- 
ing song, as usual — "Eoamin' in the Gloamin','' 
and then went on with the other old favorites. I 
told a lot of stories, too, and then I came to "The 
Laddies Who Fought and Won." None of the 
men had heard it, but there were officers there who 
had seen ' ' Three Cheers ' ' during the winter when 
they had had a short leave to run over to London. 

I got through the first verse all right, and was 
just swinging into the first chorus when, without 
the least warning, hell popped open in that trench. 
A missile came in that some officer at once hailed 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 267 

as a whizz bang. It is called that, for that is just 
exactly the sound it makes. It is like a giant fire- 
cracker, and it would be amusing if one did not 
know it was deadly. These missiles are not fired 
by the big guns behind the lines, but by the small 
trench cannon — worked, as a rule, by compressed 
air. The range is very short, but they are capable 
of great execution at that range. 

Was I frightened? I must have been! I know 
I felt a good deal as I have done when I have been 
seasick. And I began to think at once of all sorts 
of places where I would rather have been than in 
that trench ! I was standing on a slight elevation 
at the back, or parados, of the trench, so that I 
was raised a bit above my audience, and I had a 
fine view of that deadly thing, wandering about, 
spitting fire and metal parts. It traveled so that 
the men could dodge it, but it was throwing off 
slugs that you could neither see nor dodge, and 
it was a poor place to be ! 

Ajid the one whizz bang was not enough to suit 
Fritz. It was followed immediately by a lot more, 
that came popping in and making themselves as 
unpleasant as you could imagine. I watched the 
men about me, and they seemed to be uncon- 
cerned, and to be thinking much more of me and 
my singing than of the whizz bangs. So, no mat- 
ter how I felt, there was nothing for me to do but 
to keep on with my song. I decided that I must 
really be safe enough, no matter how I felt. But 



268 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

I had certain misgivings on the subject. Still, I 
managed to go on with my song, and I think I 
was calm enough to look at — though, if I was, my 
appearance wholly belied my true inward feelings. 

I struggled through to the end of the chorus — 
and I think I sang pretty badly, although I don't 
know. But I was pretty sure the end of the world 
had come for me, and that these laddies were tak- 
ing things as calmly as they were simply because 
they were used to it, and it was all in the day's 
work for them. The Germans were fairly sluicing 
that trench by now. The whizz bangs were pop- 
ping over us like giant fire-crackers, going off one 
and two and three at a time. And the trench was 
full of flying slugs and chunks of dirt, striking 
against our faces and hurtling all about us. 

There I was. I had a good "house." I wanted 
to please my audience. Was it no a trying situa- 
tion? I thought Fritz might have had manners 
enough to wait until I had finished my concert, at 
least! But the Hun has no manners, as all the 
world knows. 

Along that embankment we had climbed to 
reach the trenches, and not very far from the bit 
of trench in which I was singing, there was a rail- 
road bridge of some strategic importance. And 
now a shell hit that bridge — not a whizz bang, but 
a real, big shell. It exploded with a hideous 
screech, as if the bridge were some human thing 
being struck, and screaming out its agony. The 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 269 

soldiers looked at me, and I saw some of them 
winking. They seemed to be mighty interested in 
the way I was taking all this. I looked back at 
them, and then at a Highland colonel who was 
listening to my singing as quietly and as carefully 
as if he had been at a stall in Covent Garden dur- 
ing the opera season. He caught my glance. 

'*I think they're coming it a bit thick, Lauder, 
old chap," he remarked, quietly. 

'*I quite agree with you, colonel," I said. I 
tried to ape his voice and manner, but I wasn't 
so quiet as he. 

Now there came a ripping, tearing sound in the 
air, and a veritable cloudburst of the damnable 
whizz bangs broke over us. That settled matters. 
There were no orders, but everyone turned, just 
as if it were a meeting, and a motion to adjourn 
had been put and carried unanimously. We all 
ran for the safety holes or dugouts in the side of 
the embankment. And I can tell ye that the Rev- 
erend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour were no the last 
ones to reach those shelters ! No, we were by no 
means the last! 

I ha' no doot that I might have improved upon 
the shelter that / found, had I had time to pick 
and choose. But any shelter was good just then, 
and I was glad of mine, and of a chance to catch 
my breath. Afterward, I saw a picture by Cap- 
tain Bairnsfather that made me laugh a good 
deal, because it represented so exactly the way I 



270 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

felt. He had made a drawing of two Tommies 
in a wee bit of a hole in a field that was being 
swept by shells and missiles of every sort. One 
was grousing to his mate, and the other said to 
him: 

' ' If you know a better 'ole go 'ide in it ! " 

I said we all turned and ran for cover. But 
there was one braw laddie who did nothing of the 
sort. He would not run — such tricks were not for 
him! 

He was a big Hie 'land laddie, and he wore 
naught but his kilt and his semmet — his under- 
shirt. He had on his steel helmet, and it shaded 
a face that had not been shaved or washed for 
days. His great, brawny arms were folded across 
his chest, and he was smoking his pipe. And he 
stood there as quiet and unconcerned as if he 
had been a village smith gazing down a quiet 
country road. I watched him, and he saw me, and 
grinned at me. And now and then he glanced at 
me, quizzically. 

"It's all right, Harry," he said, several times. 
*'Dinna fash yoursel', man. I'll tell ye in time 
for ye to duck if I see one coming your way ! ' ' 

We crouched in our holes until there came a 
brief lull in the bombardment. Probably the 
Germans thought they had killed us all and 
cleared the trench, or maybe it had been only that 
they hadn't liked my singing, and had been satis- 
fied when they had stopped it. So we came out, 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 271 

but the firing was not over at all, as we found out 
at once. So we went down a bit deeper, into con- 
crete dugouts. 

This trench had been a part of the intricate 
German defensive system far back of their old 
front line, and they had had the pains of building 
and hollowing out the fine dugout into which I 
now went for shelter. Here they had lived, deep 
under the earth, like animals — and with animals, 
too. For when I reached the bottom a dog came 
to meet me, sticking out his red tongue to lick my 
hand, and wagging his tail as friendly as you 
please. 

He was a German dog — one of the prisoners of 
war taken in the great attack. His old masters 
hadn't bothered to call him and take him with 
them when the Highlanders came along, and so 
he had stayed behind as part of the spoils of the 
attack. 

That wasn't much of a dog, as dogs go. He 
was a mongrel-looking creature, but he couldn't 
have been friendlier. The Highlanders had 
adopted him and called him Fritz, and they were 
very fond of him, and he of them. He had no 
thought of war. He behaved just as dogs do at 
hame. 

But above us the horrid din was still going on, 
and bits of shells were flying everywhere — any- 
one of them enough to kill you, if it struck you in 
the right spot. I was glad, I can tell ye, that I 



272 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

was so snug and safe beneath the ground, and I 
had no mind at all to go out until the bombard- 
ment was well over. I knew now what it was 
really to be under fire. The casual sort of shell- 
ing I had had to fear at Vimy Eidge was nothing 
to this. This was the real thing. 

And then I thought that what I was experienc- 
ing for a few minutes was the daily portion of 
these laddies who were all aboot me — not for a 
few minutes, but for days and weeks and months 
at a time. And it came home to me again, and 
stronger than ever, what they were doing for us 
folks at hame, and how we ought to be feeling for 
them. 

The heavy firing went on for three-quarters of 
an hour, at least. We could hear the chugging of 
the big guns, and the sorrowful swishing of the 
shells, as if they were mournful because they were 
not wreaking more destruction than they were. 
It all moved me greatly, but I could see that the 
soldiers thought nothing of it, and were quite un- 
perturbed by the fearful demonstration that was 
going on above. They smoked and chatted, and 
my own nerves grew calmer. 

Finally there seemed to come a real lull in the 
row above, and I turned to the general. 

"Isn't it near time for me to be finishing my 
concert, sir?" I asked him. 

"Very good," he said, jumping up. "Just as 
you say, Lauder." 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 273 

So back we went to where I had begun to sing. 
My audience reassembled, and I struck up "The 
Laddies Who Fought and Won" again. It 
seemed, somehow, the most appropriate song I 
could have picked to sing in that spot ! I finished, 
this time, but there was some discord in the clos- 
ing bars, for the Germans were still at their shell- 
ing, sporadically. 

So I finished, and I said good-by to the men who 
were to stay in the trench, guarding that bit of 
Britain's far flung battleline. And then the Rev- 
erend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour was ready to go 
back — not to safety, at once, but to a region far 
less infested by the Hun than this one where we 
had been such warmly received visitors ! 



CHAPTER XXII 

I WAS sorry to be leaving the Highland laddies 
in that trench. Aye! But for the trench 
itself I had nae regrets — nae, none whatever ! 
I know no spot on the surface of this earth, of all 
that I have visited, and I have been in many 
climes, that struck me as less salubrious than yon 
bit ' trench. There were too many other visitors 
there that day, along with the Reverend Harry 
Lauder, M.P., Tour. They were braw laddies, 
yon, but no what you might call over-particular 
about the company they kept! I'd thank them, if 
they'd be havin' me to veesit them again, to let 
me come by my ain ! 

Getting away was not the safest business in the 
world, either, although it was better than staying 
in yon trench. We had to make our way back to 
the railway embankment, and along it for a space, 
and the embankment was being heavily shelled. 
It was really a trench line itself, full of dugouts, 
and as we made our way along heads popped in 
all directions, topped by steel helmets. I was 
eager to be on the other side of yon embankment, 
although I knew well enough that there was no 
sanctuary on either side of it, nor for a long space 
behind it. 

874 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 275 

That was what they called the Frenchy railway 
cutting, and it overlooked the ruined village of 
Athies. And not until after I had crossed it was 
I breathing properly. I began, then, to feel more 
like myself, and my heart and all my functions 
began to be more normal. 

All this region we had to cross now was still 
under fire, but the fire was nothing to what it had 
been. The evidences of the terrific bombardments 
there had been were plainly to be seen. Every 
scrap of exposed ground had been nicked by 
shells ; the holes were as close together as those in 
a honeycomb. I could not see how any living 
thing had come through that hell of fire, but many 
men had. Now the embankment fairly buzzed 
with activity. The dugouts were everywhere, and 
the way the helmeted heads popped out as we 
passed, inquiringly, made me think of the prairie 
dog towns I had seen in Canada and the western 
United States. 

The river Scarpe flowed close by. It was a nar- 
row, sluggish stream, and it did not look to me 
worthy of its famous name. But often, that 
spring, its slow-moving waters had been flecked 
by a bloody froth, and the bodies of brave men 
had been hidden by them, and washed clean of the 
trench mud. Now, uninviting as its aspect was, 
and sinister as were the memories it must have 
evoked in other hearts beside my own, it was 
water. And on so hot a day water was a precious 



276 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

thing to men who had been working as the laddies 
hereabout had w^orked and labored. 

So either bank was dotted with naked bodies, 
and the stream itself showed head after head, and 
flashing white arms as men went swimming. Some 
were scrubbing themselves, taking a Briton's keen 
delight in a bath, no matter what the circum- 
stances in which he gets it; others were washing 
their clothes, slapping and pounding the soaked 
garments in a way to have wrung the hearts of 
their wives, had they seen them at it. The British 
soldier, in the field, does many things for himself 
that folks at hame never think of! But many of 
the men were just lying on the bank, sprawled out 
and sunning themselves like alligators, basking in 
the warm sunshine and soaking up rest and good 
cheer. 

It looked like a good place for a concert, and so 
I quickly gathered an audience of about a thou- 
sand men from the dugouts in the embankment 
and obeyed their injunctions to "Go it, Harry! 
Gie us a song, do now!" 

As I finished my first song my audience ap- 
plauded me and cheered me most heartily, and the 
laddies along the banks of the Scarpe heard them, 
and came running up to see what was afoot. There 
were no ladies thereabout, and they did not stand 
on a small matter like getting dressed ! Not they ! 
They came running just as they were, and Adam, 
garbed in his fig leaf, was fully clad compared to 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 277 

most of them. It was the barest gallery I ever 
saw, and the noisiest, too, and the most truly- 
appreciative. 

High up above us airplanes were circling, so 
high that we could not tell from which side they 
came, except when we saw some of them being 
shelled, and so knew that they belonged to Fritz. 
They looked like black pinheads against the blue 
cushion of the sky, and no doubt that they were 
vastly puzzled as to the reason of this gathering 
of naked men. What new tricks were the damned 
English up to now? So I have no doubt, they 
were wondering! It was the business of their 
observers, of course, to spot just such gatherings 
as ours, although I did not think of that just then 
— except to think that they might drop a bomb or 
two, maybe. 

But scouting airplanes, such as those were, do 
not go in for bomb dropping. There are three 
sorts of airplanes. First come the scouting planes 
— fairly fast, good climbers, able to stay in the air 
a long time. Their business is just to spy out the 
lay of the land over the enemy's trenches — not 
to fight or drop bombs. Then come the swift, 
powerful bombing planes, which make raids, flying 
long distances to do so. The Huns use such 
planes to bomb unprotected towns and kill women 
and babies; ours go in for bombing ammunition 
dumps and trains and railway stations and other 
places of military importance, although, by now, 



S78 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

they may be indulging in reprisals for some of 
Fritz's murderous raids, as so many folk at hame 
in Britain have prayed they would. 

Both scouting and bombing planes are protected 
by the fastest flyers of all — the battle planes, as 
they are called. These fight other planes in the 
air, and it is the men who steer them and fight 
their guns who perform the heroic exploits that 
you may read of every day. But much of the 
great work in the air is done by the scouting 
planes, which take desperate chances, and find it 
hard to fight back when they are attacked. And 
it was scouts who were above us now — and, doubt- 
less, sending word back by wireless of a new and 
mysterious concentration of British forces along 
the Scarpe, which it might be a good thing for 
the Hun artillery to strafe a bit ! 

So, before very long, a rude interruption came 
to my songs, in the way of shells dropped unpleas- 
antly close. The men so far above us had given 
their guns the range, and so, although the gun- 
ners could not see us, they could make their pres- 
ence felt. 

I have never been booed or hissed by an audi- 
ence, since I have been on the stage. I under- 
stand that it is a terrible and a disconcerting ex- 
perience, and one calculated to play havoc with 
the stoutest of nerves. It is an experience I am 
by no means anxious to have, I can tell you ! But 
I doubt if it could seem worse to me than the inter- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 279 

ruption of a shell. The Germans, that day, showed 
no ear for music, and no appreciation of art — my 
art, at least ! 

And so it seemed well to me to cut my pro- 
gramme, to a certain extent, at least, and bid fare- 
well to my audience, dressed and undressed. It 
was a performance at which it did not seem to me 
a good idea to take any curtain calls. I did not 
miss them, nor feel slighted because they were 
absent. I was too glad to get away with a whole 
skin! 

The shelling became very furious now. Plainly 
the Germans meant to take no chances. They 
couldn't guess what the gathering their airplanes 
had observed might portend, but, if they could, 
they meant to defeat its object, whatever that 
might be. Well, they did not succeed, but they 
probably had the satisfaction of thinking that they 
had, and I, for one, do not begrudge them that. 
They forced the Eeverend Harry Lauder, M.P., 
Tour to make a pretty wide detour, away from the 
river, to get back to the main road. But they 
fired a power of shells to do so ! 

When we finally reached the road I heard a 
mad sputtering behind. I looked around in alarm, 
because it sounded, for all the w^orld, like one of 
those infernal whizz bangs, chasing me. But it 
was not. The noise came from a motor cycle, and 
its rider dashed up to me and dropped one foot 
to the ground. 



280 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

*' Here's a letter for you, Harry," he said. 

It was a package that he handed me. I was sur- 
prised — I was not expecting to have a post deliv- 
ered to me on the battlefield of Arras ! It turned 
out that the package contained a couple of ugly- 
looking bits of shell, and a letter from my friends 
the Highlanders on the other side of the railway 
embankment. They wrote to thank me for sing- 
ing for them, and said they hoped I was none the 
worse for the bombardment I had undergone. 

''These bits of metal are from the shell that was 
closest to you when it burst," their spokesman 
wrote. ''They nearly got you, and we thought 
you'd like to have them to keep for souvenirs." 

It seemed to me that that was a singularly calm 
and phlegmatic letter! My nerves were a good 
deal overwrought, as I can see now. 

Now we made our way slowly back to division 
headquarters, and there I found that preparations 
had been made for very much the most ambitious 
and pretentious concert that I had yet had a 
chance to give in France. There was a very large 
audience, and a stage or platform had been set 
up, with plenty of room on it for Johnson and his 
piano. It had been built in a great field, and all 
around me, when I mounted it, I could see kilted 
soldiers — almost as far as my eye could reach. 
There were many thousands of them there — in- 
deed, all of the Highland Brigade that was not 
actually on duty at the moment was present, and 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 281 

a good many other men beside, for good measure. 

Here was a sight to make a Scots heart leap 
with pride! Here, before me, was the flower of 
Scottish manhood. These regiments had been 
through a series of battles, not so long since, that 
had sadly thinned their ranks. Many a Scottish 
grave had been filled that spring; many a Scot- 
tish heart at hame had been broken by sad news 
from this spot. But there they were now, before 
me — their ranks filled up again, splendid as they 
stretched out, eager to welcome me and cheer me. 
There were tears in my eyes as I looked around 
at them. 

Massed before me were all the best men Scot- 
land had had to offer ! All these men had breathed 
deep of the hellish air of war. All had marched 
shoulder to shoulder and skirt to skirt with death. 
All were of my country and my people. My heart 
was big within me with pride of them, and that I 
was of their race, as I stood up to sing for 
them. 

Johnson was waiting for me to be ready. Little 
"Tinkle Tom," as we called the wee piano, was 
not very large, but there were times w^hen he had 
to be left behind. I think he was glad to have us 
back again, and to be doing his part, instead of 
leaving me to sing alone, without his stout help. 

Many distinguished officers were in that great 
assemblage. They all turned out to hear me, as 
well as the men, and among them I saw many 



282 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

familiar faces and old friends from hame. But 
there were many faces, too, alas, that I did not 
see. And when I inquired for them later I learned 
that many of them I had seen for the last time. 
Oh, the sad news I learned, day after day, oot 
there in France ! Friend after friend of whom I 
made inquiry was known, to be sure. They could 
tell me where, and when, and how, they had been 
killed. 

Up above us, as I began to sing, our airplanes 
were circling. No Boche planes were in sight now, 
I had been told, but there were many of ours. And 
sometimes one came swooping down, its occupants 
curious, no doubt, as to what might be going on, 
and the hum of its huge propeller would make me 
falter a bit in my song. And once or twice one 
flew so low and so close that I was almost afraid 
it would strike me, and I would dodge in what I 
think was mock alarm, much to the amusement of 
the soldiers. 

I had given them two songs when a big man 
arose, far back in the crowd. He was a long way 
from me, but his great voice carried to me easily, 
so that I could hear every word he said. 

* ' Harry, ' ' he shouted, ' ' sing us ' The Wee Hoose 
Amang the Heather' and we'll a' join in the 
chorus ! ' * 

For a moment I could only stare out at them. 
Between that sea of faces, upraised to mine, and 
my eyes, there came another face — the smiling, 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 283 ' 

bonnie face of my boy John, that I should never 
see again with mortal eyes. That had been one 
of his favorite songs for many years. I hesitated. 
It was as if a gentle hand had plucked at my very 
heart strings, and played upon them. Memory — 
memories of my boy, swept over me in a flood. I 
felt a choking in my throat, and the tears welled 
into my eyes. 

But then I began to sing, making a signal to 
Johnson to let me sing alone. And when I came 
to the chorus, true to the big Highlander's prom- 
ise, they all did join in the chorus ! And what a 
chorus that was ! Thousands of men were singing. 

"There's a wee hoose amang the heather, 
There's a wee hoose o'er the sea. 
There 's a lassie in that wee hoose 
Waiting patiently for me. 
She's the picture of perfection — 
I would na tell a lee 
If ye saw her ye would love her 
Just the same as me!" 

My voice was very shaky when I came to the 
end of that chorus, but the great wave of sound 
from the 'kilted laddies rolled out, true and full, 
unshaken, unbroken. They carried the air as 
steadily as a ship is carried upon a rolling sea. 

I could sing no more for them, and then, as I 
made my way, unsteadily enough, from the plat- 
form, music struck up that was the sweetest I 



284. A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

could have heard. Some pipers had come together, 
from twa or three regiments, unknown to me, and 
now, very softly, their pipes began to skirl. They 
played the tune that I love best, ''The Drunken 
Piper." I could scarcely see to pick my way, for 
the tears that blinded me, but in my ears, as I 
passed away from them, there came, gently wail- 
ing on the pipes, the plaintive plea — 
''Will ye no come back again?" 



CHAPTER XXIII 

NOW it was time to take to the motor cars 
again, and I was glad of the thought that 
we would have a bracing ride. I needed 
something of the sort, I thought. My emotions 
had been deeply stirred, in many ways, that day. 
I felt tired and quite exhausted. This was by all 
odds the most strenuous day the Reverend Harry 
Lauder, M.P., Tour had put in yet in France. So 
I welcomed the idea of sitting back comfortably 
in the car and feeling the cool wind against my 
cheeks. 

First, however, the entertainers were to be 
entertained. They took us, the officers of the divi- 
sional staff, to a hut, where we were offered our 
choice of tea or a wee hauf yin. There was good 
Scots w^hisky there, but it was the tea I wanted. 
It was very hot in the sun, and I had done a deal 
of clambering about. So I was glad, after all, to 
stay in the shade a while and rest my limbs. 

Getting out through Arras turned out to be a 
ticklish business. The Germans were verra waste- 
ful ' their shells that day, considering how much 
siller they cost ! They were pounding away, and 
more shells, by a good many, were falling in Arras 
than had been the case when we arrived at noon. 

285 



286 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

So I got a chance to see how the ruin that had been 
wrought had been accomplished. 

Arras is a wonderful sight, noble and impres- 
sive even in its destruction. But it was a sight 
that depressed me. It had angered me, at first, 
but now I began to think, at each ruined house 
that I saw : ' ' Suppose this were at hame in Scot- 
land!" And when such thoughts came to me I 
thanked God for the brave lads I had seen that 
day who stood, out here, holding the line, and so 
formed a bulwark between Scotland and such 
black ruin as this. 

We were to start for Tramecourt now, but on 
the way we were to make a couple of stops. Our 
way was to take us through St. Pol and Hesdin, 
and, going so, we came to the town of Le Quesnoy. 
Here some of the 11th Argyle and Sutherland 
Highlanders were stationed. My heart leaped at 
the sight of them. That had been my boy's regi- 
ment, although he had belonged to a different bat- 
talion, and it was with the best will in the world 
that I called a halt and gave them a concert. 

I gave two more concerts, both brief ones, on 
the rest of the journey, and so it was quite dark 
when we approached the chateau at Tramecourt. 
As we came up I became aware of a great stir and 
movement that was quite out of the ordinary 
routine there. In the grounds I could see tiny 
lights moving about, like fireflies — ^lights that 
came, I thought, from electric torches, 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 287' 

''Something extraordinary must be going on 
here," I remarked to Captain Godfrey. "I won- 
der if General Haig has arrived, by any 
chance 1 ' ' 

"We'll soon know what it's all about," he said, 
philosophically. But I expect he knew already. 

Before the chateau there was a brilliant spot 
of light, standing out vividly against the sur- 
rounding darkness. I could not account for that 
brilliantly lighted spot then. But we came into it 
as the car stopped ; it was a sort of oasis of light 
in an inky desert of surrounding gloom. And as 
we came full into it and I stood up to descend from 
the car, stretching my tired, stiff legs, the silence 
and the darkness were split by three tremendous 
cheers. 

It wasn't General Haig who was arriving! It 
was Harry Lauder ! 

"What's the matter here?" I called, as loudly 
as I could. 

"Been waitin' for ye a couple of 'ours, 'Arry," 
called a loud cockney voice in answer. "Go it 
now! Get it off your chest!" Then came ex- 
planations. It seemed that a lot of soldiers, about 
four hundred strong, who were working on a big 
road job about ten miles from Tramecourt, had 
heard of my being there, and had decided to come 
over in a body and beg for a concert. They got 
to the chateau early, and were told it might be 
eleven o 'clock before I got back. But they didn 't 



288 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

care — they said they'd wait all night, if they had 
to, to get a chance to hear me. And they made 
some use of the time they had to wait. 

They took three big acetylene headlights from 
motor cars, and connected them up. There was 
a little porch at the entrance of the chateau, with 
a short flight of steps leading up to it, and then 
we decided that that would make an excellent 
makeshift theater. Since it would be dark they 
decided they must have lights, so that they could 
see me — just as in a regular theater at hame! 
That was where the headlights they borrowed 
from motor cars came in. They put one on each 
side of the porch and one off in front, so that all 
the light was centered right on the porch itself, 
and it was bathed in as strong a glare as ever I 
sang in on the stage. It was almost blinding, in- 
deed, as I found when I turned to face them and 
to sing for them. Needless to say, late though it 
was and tired as I was, I never thought of refus- 
ing to give them the concert they wanted ! 

I should have liked to eat my dinner first, but I 
couldn't think of suggesting it. These boys had 
done a long, hard day's work. Then they had 
marched ten miles, and, on top of all that, had 
waited two hours for me and fixed up a stage and 
a lighting system. They were quite as tired as I, 
I decided — and they had done a lot more. And 
so I told the faithful Johnson to bring wee Tinkle 
Tom along, and get him up to the little stage. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 289 

and I faced my audience in the midst of a storm 
of the ghostliest applause I ever hope to hear! 

I could hear them, do you ken, but I could no 
see a face before me! In the theater, bright 
though the footlights are, and greatly as they dim 
what lies beyond them, you can still see the white 
faces of your audience. At least, you do see some- 
thing — your eyes help you to know the audience 
is there, and, gradually, you can see perfectly, and 
pick out a face, maybe, and sing to some one per- 
son in the audience, that you may be sure of your 
effects. 

It was utter, Stygian darkness that lay beyond 
the pool of blinding light in which I stood. Gradu- 
ally I did make out a little of what lay beyond, 
very close to me. I could see dim outlines of hu- 
man bodies moving around. And now I was sure 
there were fireflies about. But then they stayed 
so still that I realized, suddenly, with a smile, just 
what they were — the glowing ends of cigarettes, 
of course ! 

There were many tall poplar trees around the 
chateau. I knew where to look for them, but that 
night I could scarcely see them. I tried to find 
them, for it was a strange, weird sensation to be 
there as I was, and I wanted all the help fixed 
objects could give me. I managed to pick out their 
feathery lines in the black distance — the darkness 
made them seem more remote than they were, 
really. Their branches, when I found them, 



290 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

waved like spirit arms, and I could hear the wind 
whispering and sighing among the topmost 
branches. 

Now and then what we call in Scotland a ''batty- 
bird" skimmed past my face, attracted, I suppose, 
by the bright light. I suppose that bats that have 
not been disturbed before for generations have 
been aroused by the blast of war through all that 
region and have come out of dark cavernous 
hiding-places, as those that night must have done, 
to see what it is all about, the tumult and the 
shouting ! 

They were verra disconcertin', those bats! 
They bothered me almost as much as the whizz 
bangs had done, earlier in the day ! They swished 
suddenly out of the darkness against my face, and 
I would start back, and hear a ripple of laughter 
run through that unseen audience of mine. Aye, 
it was verra funny for them, but I did not like 
that part of it a bit ! No man likes to have a bat 
touch his skin. And I had to duck quickly to 
evade those winged cousins of the mouse — and 
then hear a soft guffaw arising as I did it. 

I have appeared, sometimes, in theaters in 
which it was pretty difficult to find the audience. 
And such audiences have been nearly impossible 
to trace, later, in the box-office reports. But that 
is the first time in my life, and, up to now, the 
last, that I ever sang to a totally invisible audi- 
dience ! I did not know then how many men there 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 291 



were — there might have been forty, or four hun- 
dred, or four thousand. And, save for the titters 
that greeted my encounters with the bats, they 
were amazingly quiet as they waited for me to 
sing. 

It was just about ten minutes before eleven 
when I began to sing, and the concert wasn't over 
until after midnight. I was distinctly nervous as 
I began the verse of my first song. It was a great 
relief when there was a round of applause; that 
helped to place my audience and give me its meas- 
ure, at once. 

But I was almost as disconcerted a bit later as 
I had been by the first incursion of the bats. I 
came to the chorus, and suddenly, out of the dark- 
ness, there came a perfect gale of sound. It was 
the men taking up the chorus, thundering it out. 
They took the song clean away from me — I could 
only gasp and listen. The roar from that unseen 
chorus almost took my feet from under me, so 
amazing was it, and so unexpected, somehow, used 
as I was to having soldiers join in a chorus with 
me, and disappointed as I should have been had 
they ever failed to do so. 

But after that first song, when I knew what to 
expect, I soon grew used to the strange surround- 
ings. The weirdness and the mystery wore off, 
and I began to enjoy myself tremendously. The 
conditions were simply ideal; indeed, they were 
perfect, for the sentimental songs that soldiers 



292 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

always like best. Imagine how "Roamin' in the 
Gloamin' " went that nicht! 

I had meant to sing three or four songs. But 
instead I sang nearly every song I knew. It was 
one of the longest programmes I gave during the 
whole tour, and I enjoyed the concert, myself, bet- 
ter than any I had yet given. 

My audience was growing all the time, although 
I did not know that. The singing brought up 
crowds from the French village, who gathered in 
the outskirts of the throng to listen — and, I make 
no doubt, to pass amazed comments on these queer 
English ! 

At last I was too tired to go on. And so I bade 
the lads good-nicht, and they gave me a great 
cheer, and faded away into the blackness. And I 
went inside, rubbing my eyes, and wondering if 
it was no all a dream ! 

**It wasn't Sir Douglas Haig who arrived, was 
it, Harry?" Godfrey said, slyly. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE next morning I was tired, as you may be- 
lieve. I ached in every limb when I went to 
my room that night, but a hot bath and a 
good sleep did wonders for me. No bombardment 
could have kept me awake that nicht ! I would no 
ha' cared had the Hun begun shelling Tramecourt 
itself, so long as he did not shell me clear out of 
my bed. 

Still, in the morning, though I had not had so 
much sleep as I would have liked, I was ready to 
go when we got the word. We made about as 
early a start as usual — breakfast soon after day- 
light, and then out the motor cars and to wee 
Tinkle Tom. Our destination that day, our first, 
at least, was Albert — a town as badly smashed 
and battered as Arras or Ypres. These towns 
were long thinly held by the British — that is, they 
were just within our lines, and the Hun could rake 
them with his fire at his own evil will. 

It did him no good to batter them to pieces as 
he did. He wasted shells upon them that must 
have been precious to him. His treatment of them 
was but a part of his wicked, wanton spirit of 
destructiveness. He could not see a place stand- 
ing that he did not want to destroy, I think. It 

293 



294 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

was not war he made, as the world had known 
war ; it was a savage raid against every sign and 
evidence of civilization, and comfort and hap- 
piness. But always, as I think I have said before, 
one thing eluded him. It was the soul of that 
which he destroyed. That was beyond his reach, 
and sore it must have grieved him to come to know 
it — for come to know it he has, in France, and in 
Belgium, too. 

We passed through a wee town called Doullens 
on our way from Tramecourt to Albert. And 
there, that morn, I saw an old French nun; an 
aged woman, a woman old beyond all belief or 
reckoning. I think she is still there, where I saw 
her that day. Indeed, it has seemed to me, often, 
as I have thought upon her, that she will always 
be there, gliding silently through the deserted 
streets of that wee toon, on through all the ages 
that are to come, and always a cowled, veiled 
figure of reproach and hatred for the German 
race. 

There is some life in that wee place now. There 
are no more Germans, and no more shells come 
there. The battle line has been carried on to the 
East by the British; here they have redeemed a 
bit of France from the German yoke. And so we 
could stop there, in the heat of the morning, for 
a bit of refreshment at a cafe that was once, I 
suppose, quite a place in that sma' toon. It does 
but little business now; passing soldiers bring it 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 295 

some trade, but nothing like what it used to have. 
For this is not a town much frequented by troops 
— or was not, just at that time. 

There was some trouble, too, with one of the 
cars, so we went for a short walk through the 
town. It was then that we met that old French 
nun. Her face and her hands were withered, and 
deeply graven with the lines of the years that had 
bowed her head. Her back was bent, and she 
walked slowly and with difficulty. But in her eyes 
was a soft, young light that I have often seen in 
the eyes of priests and nuns, and that their com- 
forting religion gives them. But as we talked I 
spoke of the Germans. 

Gone from her eyes was all their softness. They 
flashed a bitter and contemptuous hatred. 

**The Germans!" she said. She spat upon the 
ground, scornfully, and with a gesture of infinite 
loathing. And every time she uttered that hated 
word she spat again. It was a ceremony she 
used ; she felt, I know, that her mouth was defiled 
by that word, and she wished to cleanse it. It 
was no affectation, as, with some folk, you might 
have thought it. It was not a studied act. She 
did it, I do believe, unconsciously. And it was a 
gesture marvelously expressive. It spoke more 
eloquently of her feelings than many words could 
have done. 

She had seen the Germans! Aye! She had 
seen them come, in 1914, in the first days of the 



296 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

war, rolling past in great, gray waves, for days 
and days, as if the flood would never cease to roll. 
She had seen them passing, with their guns, in 
those first proud days of the war, when they had 
reckoned themselves invincible, and been so sure 
of victory. She knew what cruelties, what indigni- 
ties, they had put upon the helpless people the 
war had swept into their clutch. She knew the 
defilements of which they had been guilty. 

Nor was that the first time she had seen Ger- 
mans. They had come before she was so old, 
though even then she had not been a young girl — 
in the war of 1870, when Europe left brave France 
to her fate, because the German spirit and the 
German plan were not appreciated or understood. 
Thank God the world had learned its lesson by 
1914, when the Hun challenged it again, so that 
the challenge was met and taken up, and France 
was not left alone to bear the brunt of German 
greed and German hate. 

She hated the Germans, that old French nun. 

She was religious ; she knew the teachings of her 

church. She knew that God says we must love 

our enemies. But He could not expect us to love 

* His enemies. 

Albert, when we came to it, we found a ruin 
indeed. The German guns had beaten upon it 
until it was like a rubbish heap in the backyard 
of hell. Their malice had wrought a ruin here 
almost worse than that at Arras. Only one build- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 297 

ing had survived although it was crumbling to 
ruin. That was a church, and, as we approached 
it, we could see, from the great way off, a great 
gilded figure of the Holy Virgin, holding in her 
arms the infant Christ. 

The figure leaned at such an angle, high up 
against the tottering wall of the church, that it 
seemed that it must fall at the next moment, even 
as we stared at it. But — it does not fall. Every 
breath of wind that comes sets it to swaying, 
gently. When the wind rises to a storm it must 
rock perilously indeed. But still it stays there, 
hanging like an inspiration straight from Heaven 
to all who see it. The peasants who gaze upon it 
each day in reverent awe whisper to you, if you 
ask them, that when it falls at last the war will 
be over, and France will be victorious. 

That is rank superstition, you say? Aye, it 
may be ! But in the region of the front everyone 
you meet has become superstitious, if that is the 
word you choose. That is especially true of the 
soldiers. Every man at the front, it seemed to me, 
was a fatalist. What is to be will be, they say. It 
is certain that this feeling has helped to make 
them indifferent to danger, almost, indeed, con- 
temptuous of it. And in France, I was told, al- 
most everywhere there were shrines in which 
figures of Christ or of His Mother had survived 
the most furious shelling. All the world knows, 
too, how, at Rheims, where the great Cathedral 



298 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

has been shattered in the wickedest and most 
wanton of all the crimes of that sort that the Ger- 
mans have to their account, the statue of Jeanne 
d'Arc, who saved France long ago, stands un- 
touched. 

How is a man to account for such things as that! 
Is he to put them down to chance, to luck, to a 
blind fate? I, for one, cannot do so, nor will I 
try to learn to do it. 

Fate, to be sure, is a strange thing, as my 
friends the soldiers know so well. But there is 
a difference between fate, or chance, and the sort 
of force that preserves statues like those I have 
named. A man never knows his luck; he does 
well not to brood upon it. I remember the case 
of a chap I knew, who was out for nearly three 
years, taking part in great battles from Mons to 
Arras. He was scratched once or twice, but was 
never even really wounded badly enough to go to 
hospital. He went to London, at last, on leave, 
and within an hour of the time when he stepped 
from his train at Charing Cross he was struck 
by a 'bus and killed. And there was the strange 
case of my friend, Tamson, the baker, of which 
I told you earlier. No — a man never knows his 
fate! 

So it seemed to me, as we drove toward Arras, 
and watched that mysterious figure, that God Him- 
self had chosen to leave it there, as a sign and a 
warning and » promise all at once. There was no 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 299 

sign of life, at first, when we came into the town. 
Silence brooded over the ruins. We stopped to 
have a look around in that scene of desolation, 
and as the motors throbbed beneath the hoods it 
seemed to me the noise they made was close to 
being blasphemous. We were right under that 
hanging fig-ure of the Virgin and of Christ, and 
to have left the silence unbroken would have been 
more seemly. 

But it was not long before the silence of the 
town was broken by another sound. It was 
marching men we heard, but they were scuffling 
with their feet as they came; they had not the 
rhythmic tread of most of the British troops we 
had encountered. Nor were these men, when they 
swung into sight, coming around a pile of ruins, 
just like any British troops we had seen. I rec- 
ognized them as once as Australians — Kangaroos, 
as their mates in other divisions called them — by 
the way their campaign hats were looped up at 
one side. These were the first Australian troops 
I had seen since I had sailed from Sydney, in the 
early days of the war, nearly three years before. 
Three years ! To think of it — and of what those 
years had seen! 

''Here's a rare chance to give a concert!" I 
said, and held up my hand to the officer in 
command. 

''Halt!" he cried, and then: "Stand at ease!" 

I was about to tell him why I had stopped them, 



300 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

and make myself known to them when I saw a 
grin rippling its way over all those bronzed faces 
— a grin of recognition. And I saw that the officer 
knew me, too, even before a loud voice cried out : 

' ' Good old Harry Lauder ! ' ' 

That was a good Scots voice — even though its 
owner wore the Australian uniform. 

''Would the boys like to hear a concert?" I 
asked the officer. 

"That they would! By all means!" he said. 
''Glad of the chance! And so'm I! I've heard 
you just once before — in Sydney, away back in 
the summer of 1914." 

Then the big fellow who had called my name 
spoke up again. 

"Sing us 'Calligan,' " he begged. "Sing us 
'Calligan,' Harry! I heard you sing it twenty- 
three years agone, in Motherwell Toon Hall!" 

"Calligan!" The request for that song took 
me back indeed, through all the years that I have 
been before the public. It must have been at least 
twenty-three years since he had heard me sing 
that song — all of twenty-three years. ' ' Calligan" 
had been one of the very earliest of my successes 
on the stage. I had not thought of the song, much 
less sung it, for years and years. In fact, though 
I racked my brains, I could not remember the 
words. And so, much as I should have liked to 
do so, I could not sing it for him. But if he was 
disappointed, he took it in good part, and he 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 301 

seemed to like some of the newer songs I had to 
sing for them as well as he could ever have liked 
old^'Calligan." 

I sang for these Kangaroos a song I had not 
sung before in France, because it seemed to be an 
especially auspicious time to try it. I wrote it 
while I was in Australia, with a view, particu- 
larly, to pleasing Australian audiences, and so re- 
paying them, in some measure, for the kindly way 
in which they treated me while I was there. I 
call it ''Australia Is the Land for Me," and this 
is the way it goes : 

There 's a land I 'd like to tell you all about 

It's a land in the far South Sea. 
It's a land where the sun shines nearly every day 

It's the land for you and me. 
It's the land for the man with the big strong arm 

It's the land for big hearts, too. 
It 's a land we '11 fight for, everything that 's right for 

Australia is the real true blue! 

Refrain : 

It 's the land where the sun shines nearly every day 

Where the skies are ever blue. 
Where the folks are as happy as the day is long 

And there's lots of work to do. 
Where the soft winds blow and the gum trees grow 

As far as the eye can see, 
Where the magpie chaffs and the cuckoo-burra laughs 

Australia is the land for me ! 



302 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

Those Kangaroos took to that song as a duck 
takes to water ! They raised the chorus wdth me 
in a swelling roar as soon as they had heard it 
once, to learn it, and their voices roared through 
the ruins like vocal shrapnel. You could hear 
them w^hoop ''Australia Is the Land for Me!" a 
mile away. And if anything could have brought 
down that tottering statue above us it would have 
been the way they sang. They put body and soul, 
as well as voice, into that final patriotic declara- 
tion of the song. 

We had thought — I speak for Hogge and Adam 
and myself, and not for Godfrey, who did not have 
to think and guess, but know^ — we had thought, 
when we rolled into Albert, that it was a city of 
the dead, utterly deserted and forlorn. But now, 
as I went on singing, we found that that idea had 
been all wrong. For as the Australians whooped 
up their choruses other soldiers popped into sight. 
They came pouring from all directions. 

I have seen few sights more amazing. They 
came from cracks and crevices, as it seemed ; from 
under tumbled heaps of ruins, and dropping do^vn 
from shells of houses where there were certainly 
no stairs. As I live, before I had finished my 
audience had been swollen to a great one of two 
thousand men! When they were all roaring out 
in a chorus you could scarce hear Johnson's wee 
piano at all — it sounded only like a feeble tinkle 
when there was a part for it alone. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 303 

I began shaking hands, when I had finished sing- 
ing. That was a verrainjudeecious thing for me 
to attempt there! I had not reckoned with the 
strength of the grip of those laddies from the 
underside of the world. But I had been there, 
and I should have koown. 

Soon came the order to the Kangaroos: "Fall 
in!" 

At once the habit of stern discipline prevailed. ' 
They swung off again, and the last we saw of them 
they were just brown men, disappearing along a 
brown road, bound for the trenches. 

Swiftly the mole-like dwellers in Albert melted 
away, until only a few officers were left beside the 
members of the Eeverend Harry Lauder, M.P., 
Tour. And I grew grave and distraught myself. 



CHAPTER XXV 

ONE of the officers at Albert was looking at 
me in a curiously intent fashion. I noticed 
that. And soon he came over to me. 

"Where do you go next, Harry I" he asked me. 
His voice was keenly sympathetic, and his eyes 
and his manner were very grave. 

"To a place called Ovilliers," I said. 

"So I thought," he said. He put out his hand, 
and I gripped it, hard. "I know, Harry. I know 
exactly where you are going, and I will send a 
man with you to act as your guide, who knows the 
spot you want to reach." 

I couldn 't answer him. I was too deeply moved. 
For Ovilliers is the spot where my son, Captain 
John Lauder, lies in his soldier's grave. That 
grave had been, of course, from the very first, the 
final, the ultimate objective of my journey. And 
that morning, as we set out from Tramecourt, 
Captain Godfrey had told me, with grave sym- 
pathy, that at last we were coming to the spot that 
had been so constantly in my thoughts ever since 
we had sailed from Folkestone. 

And so a private soldier joined our party as 
guide, and we took to the road again. The 
Bapaume road it was — a famous highway, bitterly 

304 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 305 

contested, savagely fought for. It was one of the 
strategic roads of that whole region, and the Hun 
had made a desperate fight to keep control of it. 
But he had failed — as he has failed, and is failing 
still, in all his major efforts in France. 

There was no talking in our car, which, this 
morning, was the second in the line. I certainly 
was not disposed to chat, and I suppose that sym- 
pathy for my feelings, and my glumness, stilled 
the tongues of my companions. And, at any rate, 
we had not traveled far when the car ahead of us 
stopped, and the soldier from Albert stepped into 
the road and waited for me. I got out when our 
car stopped, and joined him. 

"I will show you the place now, Mr. Lauder," 
he said, quietly. So we left the cars standing in 
the road, and set out across a field that, like all 
the fields in that vicinity, had been ripped and 
torn by shell-fire. All about us, as we crossed that 
tragic field, there were little brown mounds, each 
with a white wooden cross upon it. June was out 
that day in full bloom. All over the valley, 
thickly sown with those white crosses, wild flowers 
in rare profusion, and thickly matted, luxuriant 
grasses, and all the little shrubs that God Himself 
looks after were growing bravely in the sunlight, 
as though they were trying to hide the work of 
the Hun. 

It was a mournful journey, but, in some strange 
way, the peaceful beauty of the day brought com- 



306 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

fort to me. And my own grief was altered by the 
vision of the grief that had come to so many 
others. Those crosses, stretching away as far as 
my eye could reach, attested to the fact that it was 
not I alone who had suffered and lost and laid a 
sacrifice upon the altar of my country. And, in 
the presence of so many evidences of grief and 
desolation a private grief sank into its true pro- 
portions. It was no less keen, the agony of the 
thought of my boy was as sharp as ever. But I 
knew that he was only one, and that I was only 
one father. And there were so many like him — 
and so many like me, God help us all! Well, He 
did help me, as I have told, and I hope and pray 
that He has helped many another. I believe He 
has ; indeed, I know it. 

Hogge and Dr. Adam, my two good friends, 
walked with me on that sad pilgrimage. I was 
acutely conscious of their sympathy ; it was sweet 
and precious to have it. But I do not think we 
exchanged a word as we crossed that field. There 
was no need of words. I knew, without speech 
from them, how they felt, and they knew that I 
knew. So we came, when we were, perhaps, half 
a mile from the Bapaume road, to a slight 
eminence, a tiny hill that rose from the field. A 
little military cemetery crowned it. Here the 
graves were set in ordered rows, and there was 
a fence set around them, to keep them apart, and 
to mark that spot as holy ground, until the end 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 307 

of time. Five hundred British boys lie sleeping 
in that small acre of silence, and among them is 
my own laddie. There the fondest hopes of my 
life, the hopes that sustained and cheered me 
through many years, lie buried. 

No one spoke. But the soldier pointed, silently 
and eloquently, to one brown mound in a row of 
brown mounds that looked alike, each like the 
other. Then he drew away. And Hogge and 
Adam stopped, and stood together, quiet and 
grave. And so I went alone to my boy's grave, 
and flung myself down upon the warm, friendly 
earth. My memories of that moment are not very 
clear, but I think that for a few minutes I was 
utterly spent, that my collapse was complete. 

He was such a good boy ! 

I hope you will not think, those of you, my 
friends, who may read what I am writing here, 
that I am exalting my lad above all the other 
Britons who died for King and country — or, and 
aye, above the brave laddies of other races who 
died to stop the Hun. But he was such a good 
boy! 

As I lay there on that brown mound, under the 
June sun that day, all that he had been, and all 
that he had meant to me and to his mother came 
rushing back afresh to my memory, opening anew 
my wounds of grief. I thought of him as a baby, 
and as a wee laddie beginning to run around and 
talk to us. I thought of him in every phase and 



308 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

bit of his life, and of the friends that we had been, 
he and I ! Such chums we were, always ! 

And as I lay there, as I look back upon it now, 
I can think of but the one desire that ruled and 
moved me. I wanted to reach my arms down into 
that dark grave, and clasp my boy tightly to my 
breast, and kiss him. And I wanted to thank him 
for what he had done for his country, and his 
mother, and for me. 

Again there came to me, as I lay there, the same 
gracious solace that God had given me after I 
heard of his glorious death. And I knew that this 
dark grave, so sad and lonely and forlorn, was but 
the temporary bivouac of my boy. I knew that it 
was no more than a trench of refuge against the 
storm of battle, in which he was resting until that 
hour shall sound when we shall all be reunited be- 
yond the shadowy borderland of Death. 

How long did I lie there ? I do not know. And 
how I found the strength at last to drag myself 
to my feet and away from that spot, the dearest 
and the saddest spot on earth to me, God only 
knows. It was an hour of very great anguish for 
me ; an hour of an anguish different, but only less 
keen, than that which I had known when they had 
told me first that I should never see my laddie in 
the flesh again. But as I took up the melancholy 
journey across that field, with its brown mounds 
and its white crosses stretching so far away, they 
seemed to bring me a sort of tragic consolation. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 309 

I thought of all the broken-hearted ones at home, 
in Britain. How many were waiting, as I had 
waited, until they, too, — they, too, — ^might come to 
France, and cast themselves down, as I had done, 
upon some brown mound, sacred in their thoughts ? 
How many were praying for the day to come when 
they might gaze upon a white cross, as I had done, 
and from the brown mound out of which it rose 
gather a few crumbs of that brown earth, to be 
deposited in a sacred corner of a sacred place 
yonder in Britain? 

While I was in America, on my last tour, a 
woman wrote to me from a town in the state of 
Maine. She was a stranger to me when she sat 
down to write that letter, but I count her now, al- 
though I have never seen her, among my very 
dearest friends. 

"I have a friend in France," she wrote. *'He 
is there with our American army, and we had a 
letter from him the other day. I think you would 
like to hear what he wrote to us. 

" * I was walking in the gloaming here in France 
the other evening,' he wrote. *You know, I have 
always been very fond of that old song of Harry 
Lauder's, 'Eoamin' in the Gloamin'.' 

'' 'Well, I was roamin' in the gloamin' myself, 
and as I went I hummed that very song, under my 
breath. And I came, in my walk to a little ceme- 
tery, on a tiny hill. There were many mounds 
there and many small white crosses. About one 



310 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

of them a Union Jack was wrapped so tightly that 
I could not read the inscription upon it. And 
something led me to unfurl that weather-worn 
flag, so that I could read. And what do you think? 
It was the grave of Harry Lauder's son, Captain 
John Lauder, of the Argyle and Sutherland High- 
landers, and his little family crest was upon the 
cross. 

'' *I stood there, looking down at that grave, 
and I said a little prayer, all by myself. And then 
I rewound the Union Jack about the cross. I 
went over to some ruins nearby, and there I found 
a red rose growing. I do believe it was the last 
rose of summer. And I took it up, very carefully, 
roots and all, and carried it over to Captain 
Lauder's grave, and planted it there.' " 

What a world of comfort those words brought 
me! 

It was about eight o'clock one morning that 
Captain Lauder was killed, between Courcellete 
and Poizieres, on the Ancre, in the region that is 
known as the Somme battlefield. It was soon 
after breakfast, and John was going about, seeing 
to his men. His company was to be relieved that 
day, and to go back from the trenches to rest bil- 
lets, behind the lines. We had sent our laddie a 
braw lot of Christmas packages not long before, 
but he had had them kept at the rest billet, so that 
he might have the pleasure of opening them when 
he was out of the trenches, and had a little leisure. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 311 

even though it made his Christmas presents a wee 
bit late. 

There had been a little mist upon the ground, 
as, at that damp and chilly season of the year, 
there nearly always was along the river Ancre. 
At that time, on that morning, it was just begin- 
ning to rise as the sun grew strong enough to 
banish it. I think John trusted too much to the 
mist, perhaps. He stepped for just a moment into 
the open; for just a moment he exposed himself, 
as he had to do, no doubt, to do his duty. And 
a German sniper, watching for just such 
chances, caught a glimpse of him. His rifle 
spoke; its bullet pierced John's brave and 
gentle heart. 

Tate, John's body-servant, a man from our own 
town, was the first to reach him. Tate was never 
far from John's side, and he was heart-broken 
when he reached him that morning and found that 
there was nothing he could do for him. 

Many of the soldiers who served with John and 
under him have written to me, and come to me. 
And all of them have told me the same thing: 
that there was not a man in his company who did 
not feel his death as a personal loss and bereave- 
ment. And his superior officers have told me the 
same thing. In so far as such reports could com- 
fort us his mother and I have taken solace in them. 
All that we have heard of John's life in the 
trenches, and of his death, was such a report as 



312 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

we or any parents should want to have of their 
boy. 

John never lost his rare good nature. There 
were times when things were going very badly 
indeed, but at such times he could always be 
counted upon to raise a laugh and uplift the 
spirits of his men. He knew them all; he knew 
them well. Nearly all of them came from his 
home region near the Clyde, and so they were his 
neighbors and his friends. 

I have told you earlier that John was a good 
musician. He played the piano rarely well, for an 
amateur, and he had a grand singing voice. And 
one of his fellow-officers told me that, after the 
fight at Beaumont-Hamul, one of the phases of the 
great Battle of the Somme, John's company found 
itself, toward evening, near the ruins of an old 
chateau. After that fight, by the way, dire news, 
sad news, came to our village of the men of the 
Argyle and Sutherland regiment, and there were 
many stricken homes that mourned brave lads who 
would never come home again. 

John's men were near to exhaustion that night. 
They had done terrible work that day, and their 
losses had been heavy. Now that there was an 
interlude they lay about, tired and bruised and 
battered. Many had been killed; many had been 
so badly wounded that they lay somewhere behind, 
or had been picked up already by the Red Cross 
men who followed them across the field of the at- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 313 

tack. But there were many more who had been 
slightly hurt, and whose wounds began to pain 
them grievously now. The spirit of the men was 
dashed. 

John's friend and fellow-officer told me of the 
scene. 

''There we were, sir," he said. *'We were 
pretty well done in, I can tell you. And then 
Lauder came along. I suppose he was just as 
tired and worn out as the rest of us — God knows 
he had as much reason to be, and more ! But he 
was as cocky as a little bantam. And he was smil- 
ing. He looked about. 

'* 'Here — this won't do!' he said. 'We've got 
to get these lads feeling better ! ' He was talking 
more to himself than to anyone else, I think. And 
he went exploring around. He got into what was 
left of that chateau — and I can tell you it wasn't 
much ! The Germans had been using it as a point 
d'appui — a sort of rallying-place, sir — and our 
guns had smashed it up pretty thoroughly. I've 
no doubt the Fritzies had taken a hack at it, too, 
when they found they couldn't hold it any longer 
— they usually did. 

"But, by a sort of miracle, there was a piano 
inside that had come through all the trouble. The 
building and all the rest of the furniture had been 
knocked to bits, but the piano was all right, al- 
though, as I say, I don't know how that had hap- 
pened. Lauder spied it, and went clambering over 



314 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

all the debris and wreckage to reach it. He tried 
the keys, and found that the action was all right. 
So he began picking out a tune, and the rest of us 
began to sit up a bit. And pretty soon he Hfted 
his voice in a rollicking tune — one of your songs 
it was, sir — and in no time the men were all sit- 
ting up to listen to him. Then they joined in the 
chorus — and pretty soon you'd never have known 
they'd been tired or worn out! If there 'd been a 
chance they'd have gone at Fritz and done the 
day's work all over again!" 

After John was killed his brother officers sent 
us all his personal belongings. We have his field- 
glasses, with the mud of the trenches dried upon 
them. We have a little gold locket that he always 
wore around his neck. His mother's picture is 
in it, and that of the lassie he was to have married 
had he come home, after New Year's. And we 
have his rings, and his boots, and his watch, and 
all the other small possessions that were a part of 
his daily life out there in France. 

Many soldiers and officers of the 'Argyle and 
Sutherlanders pass the hoose at Dunoon on the 
Clyde. None ever passes the hoose, though, with- 
out dropping in, for a bite and sup if he has time 
to stop, and to tell us stories of our beloved boy. 

No, I would no have you think that I would exalt 
my boy above all the others who have lived and 
died in France in the way of duty. But he was 
such a good boy! We have heard so many tales 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 315 

like those I have told you, to make us proud of 
him, and glad that he bore his part as a man 
should. 

He will stay there, in that small grave on that 
tiny hill. I shall not bring his body back to rest 
in Scotland, even if the time comes when I might 
do so. It is a soldier's grave, and an honorable 
place for him to be, and I feel it is there that he 
would wish to lie, with his men lying close about 
him, until the time comes for the great reunion. 

But I am going back to France to visit again 
and again that grave where he lies buried. So 
long as I live myself that hill will be the shrine to 
which my many pilgrimages will be directed. The 
time will come again when I may take his mother 
with me, and when we may kneel together at that 
spot. 

And meanwhile the wild flowers and the long 
grasses and all the little shrubs will keep watch 
and ward over him there, and over all the other 
brave soldiers who lie hard by, who died for God 
and for their flag. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

SO, at last, I turned back toward the road, and 
very slowly, with bowed head and shoulders 
that felt very old, all at once, I walked back 
toward the Bapaume highway. I was still silent, 
and when we reached the road again, and the wait- 
ing cars, I turned, and looked back, long and sor- 
rowfully, at that tiny hill, and the grave it shel- 
tered. Godfrey and Hogge and Adam, Johnson 
and the soldiers of our party, followed my gaze. 
But we looked in silence ; not one of us had a word 
to say. There are moments, as I suppose we have 
all had to learn, that are beyond words and 
speech. 

And then at last we stepped back into the cars, 
and resumed our journey on the Bapaume road. 
We started slowly, and I looked back until a turn 
in the road hid that field with its mounds and its 
crosses, and that tiny cemetery on the wee hill. 
So I said good-by to my boy again, for a little 
space. 

Our road was by way of Poizieres, and this part 
of our journey took us through an area of fearful 
desolation. It was the country that was most bit- 
terly fought over in the summer long battle of 
the Somme in 1916, when the new armies of 

316 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 317 

Britain had their baptism of fire and sounded the 
knell of doom for the Hun. It was then he learned 
that Britain had had time, after all, to train troops 
who, man for man, outmatched his best. 

Here war had passed like a consuming flame, 
leaving no living thing in its path. The trees were 
mown down, clean to the ground. The very earth 
was blasted out of all semblance to its normal 
kindly look. The scene was like a picture of Hell 
from Dante's Inferno; there is nothing upon this 
earth that may be compared with it. Death and 
pain and agony had ruled this whole countryside, 
once so smiling and fair to see. 

After we had driven for a space we came to 
something that lay by the roadside that was a fit- 
ting occupant of such a spot. It was like the 
skeleton of some giant creature of a prehistoric 
age, incredibly savage even in its stark, unlovely 
death. It might have been the frame of some vast, 
metallic tumble bug, that, crawling ominously 
along this road of death, had come into the path 
of a Colossus, and been stepped upon, and then 
kicked aside from the road to die. 

"That's what's left of one of our first tanks," 
said Godfrey. ''We used them first in this battle 
of the Somme, you remember. And that must 
have been one of the very earliest ones. They've 
been improved and perfected since that time." 

' ' How came it like this T ' I asked, gazing at it, 
curiously. 



318 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

''A direct hit from a big German shell — a lucky 
hit, of course. That's about the only thing 
that could put even one of the first tanks out 
of action that way. Ordinary shells from 
field pieces, machine-gun fire, that sort of 
thing, made no impression on the tanks. But, 
of course " 

I could see for myself. The in'ards of the 
monster had been pretty thoroughly knocked out. 
Well, that tank had done its bit, I have no doubt. 
And, since its heyday, the brain of Mars has 
spawned so many new ideas that this vast creature 
would have been obsolete, and ready for the scrap 
heap, even had the Hun not put it there before its 
time. 

At the Butte de Marlincourt, one of the most 
bitterly contested bits of the battlefield, we passed 
a huge mine crater, and I made an inspection of 
it. It was like the crater of an old volcano, a huge 
old mountain with a hole in its center. Here were 
elaborate dugouts, too, and many graves. 

Soon we came to Bapaume. Bapaume was one 
of the objectives the British failed to reach in the 
action of 1916. But early in 1917 the Germans, 
seeing they had come to the end of their tether 
there, retreated, and gave the town up. But what 
a town they left! Bapaume was nearly as com- 
plete a ruin as Arras and Albert. But it had not 
been wrecked by shell-fire. The Hun had done 
the work in cold blood. The houses had been 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 319 

wrecked by human hands. Pictures still hung 
crazily upon the walls. Grates were falling out 
of fire-places. Beds stood on end. Tables and 
chairs were wantonly smashed and there was 
black ruin everywhere. 

We drove on then to a small town where the 
skirling of pipes heralded our coming. It was the 
headquarters of General Willoughby and the For- 
tieth Division. Highlanders came flocking around 
to greet us warmly, and they all begged me to 
sing to them. But the officer in command called 
them to attention. 

''Men," he said, "Harry Lauder comes to us 
fresh from the saddest mission of his life. We 
have no right to expect him to sing for us to-day, 
but if it is God's will that he should, nothing could 
give us greater pleasure." 

My heart was very heavy within me, and never, 
even on the night when I went back to the Shaftes- 
bury Theater, have I felt less like singing. But 
I saw the warm sympathy on the faces of the boys. 
"If you'll take me as I am," I told them, "I will 
try to sing for you. I will do my best, anyway. 
When a man is killed, or a battalion is killed, or 
a regiment is killed, the war goes on, just the 
same. And if it is possible for you to fight with 
broken ranks, I'll try to sing for you with a broken 
heart." 

And so I did, and, although God knows it must 
have been a feeble effort, the lads gave me a beau- 



320 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

tiful reception. I sang my older songs for them — 
the songs my own laddie had loved. 

They gave us tea after I had sung for them, with 
chocolate eclairs as a rare treat! We were sur- 
prised to get such fare upon the battlefield, but 
it was a welcome surprise. 

We turned back from Bapaume, traveling along 
another road on the return journey. And on the 
way we met about two hundred German prisoners 
— the first we had seen in any numbers. They 
were working on the road, under guard of British 
soldiers. They looked sleek and well-fed, and they 
were not working very hard, certainly. Yet I 
thought there was something about their expres- 
sion like that of neglected animals. I got out of 
the car and spoke to an intelligent-looking little 
chap, perhaps about twenty-five years old — a 
sergeant. He looked rather suspicious when I 
spoke to him, but he saluted smartly, and stood at 
attention while we talked, and he gave me ready 
and civil answers. 

''You speak English?" I asked. "Fluently?" 

"Yes, sir!" 

"How do you like being a prisoner?" 

"I don't like it. It's very degrading." 

"Your companions look pretty happy. Any 
complaints ? ' ' 

"No, sir! None!" 

"What are the Germans fighting for? What 
do you hope to gain?" 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 321 

*'The freedom of the seas!" 

' ' But you had that before the war broke out ! " 

"We haven't got it now." 

I laughed at that. 

''Certainly not," I said. ''Give us credit for 
doing something! But how are you going to get 
it again?" 

"Our submarines will get it for us." 

"Still," I said, "you must be fighting for some- 
thing else, too ? ' ' 

"No," he said, doggedly. "Just for the free- 
dom of the seas." 

I couldn't resist telling him a bit of news that 
the censor was keeping very carefully from his 
fellow-Germans at home. 

"We sank seven of your submarines last week," 
I said. 

He probably didn't believe that. But his face 
paled a bit, and his lips puckered, and he scowled. 
Then, as I turned away, he whipped his hand to 
his forehead in a stiff salute, but I felt that it was 
not the most gracious salute I had ever seen! 
Still, I didn 't blame him much ! 

Captain Godfrey meant to show us another 
village that day. 

"Rather an interesting spot," he said. "They 
differ, these French villages. They're not all 
alike, by any means." 

Then, before long, he began to look puzzled. 
And finally he called a halt. 



322 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

*'It ought to be right here," he said. ''It was, 
not so long ago. ' ' 

But there was no village ! The Hun had passed 
that way. And the village for which Godfrey was 
seeking had been utterly wiped off the face of the 
earth! Not a trace of it remained. Where men 
and women and little children had lived and 
worked and played in quiet happiness the abomi- 
nable desolation that is the work of the Hun had 
come. There was nothing to show that they or 
their village had ever been. 

The Hun knows no mercy! 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THERE had been, originally, a perfectly- 
definite route for the Reverend Harry 
Lauder, M.P., Tour — as definite a route as 
is mapped out for me when I am touring the 
United States. Our route had called for a fairly- 
steady progress from Vimy Ridge to Peronne — 
like Bapaume, one of the great unreached objec- 
tives of the Somme offensive, and, again like 
Bapaume, ruined and abandoned by the Germans 
in the retreat of the spring of 1917. But we made 
many side trips and gave many and many an un- 
planned, extemporaneous roadside concert, as I 
have told. 

For all of us it had been a labor of love. I 
will always believe that I sang a little better on 
that tour than I have ever sung before or ever 
shall again, and I am sure, too, that Hogge and 
Dr. Adam spoke more eloquently to their soldier 
hearers than they ever did in parliament or 
church. My wee piano. Tinkle Tom, held out 
staunchly. He never wavered in tune, though he 
got some sad jouncings as he clung to the grid 
of a swift-moving car. As for Johnson, my 
Yorkshireman, he was as good an accompanist be- 
fore the tour ended as I could ever want, and he 

323 



324 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

took the keenest interest and delight in his work, 
from start to finish. 

Captain Godfrey, our manager, must have been 
proud indeed of the "business" his troupe did. 
The weather was splendid; the "houses" every- 
where were so big that if there had been Stand- 
ing Room Only signs they would have been called 
into use every day. And his company got a won- 
derful reception wherever it showed! He had 
everything a manager could have to make his 
heart rejoice. And he did not, like many man- 
agers, have to be continually trying to patch up 
quarrels in the company! He had no petty pro- 
fessional jealousies with which to contend; such 
things were unknown in our troupe ! 

All the time while I was singing in France I was 
elaborating an idea that had for some time pos- 
sessed me, and that was coming now to dominate 
me utterly. I was thinking of the maimed sol- 
diers, the boys who had not died, but had given 
a leg, or an arm, or their sight to the cause, and 
who were doomed to go through the rest of their 
lives broken and shattered and incomplete. They 
were never out of my thoughts. I had seen them 
before I ever came to France, as I traveled the 
length and breadth of the United Kingdom, sing- 
ing for the men in the camps and the hospitals, 
and doing what I could to help in the recruiting. 
And I used to lie awake of nights, wondering what 
would become of those poor broken laddies when 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 325 

the war was over and we were all setting to work 
again to rebuild our lives. 

And especially I thought of the brave laddies of 
my ain Scotland. They must have thought often 
of their future. They must have wondered what 
was to become of them, when they had to take up 
the struggle with the world anew — no longer on 
even terms with their mates, but handicapped by 
grievous injuries that had come to them in the 
noblest of ways. I remembered crippled soldiers, 
victims of other wars, whom I had seen selling 
papers and matches on street corners, objects of 
charity, almost, to a generation that had forgotten 
the service to the country that had put them in 
the way of having to make their living so. And 
I had made a great resolution that, if I could do 
aught to prevent it, no man of Scotland who had 
served in this war should ever have to seek a 
livelihood in such a manner. 

So I conceived the idea of raising a great fund 
to be used for giving the maimed Scots soldiers a 
fresh start in life. They would be pensioned by 
the government. I knew that. But I knew, too, 
that a pension is rarely more than enough to keep 
body and soul together. What these crippled men 
would need, I felt, was enough money to set them 
up in some little business of their own, that they 
could see to despite their wounds, or to enable 
them to make a new start in some old business or 
trade, if they could do so. 



326 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

A man might need a hundred pounds, I thought, 
or two hundred pounds, to get him started prop- 
erly again. And I wanted to be able to hand a 
man what money he might require. I did not want 
to lend it to him, taking his note or his promise 
to pay. Nor did I want to give it to him as 
charity. I wanted to hand it to him as a free- 
will offering, as a partial pajment of the debt 
Scotland owed him for what he had done for 
her. 

And I thought, too, of men stricken by shell- 
shock, or paralyzed in the war — there are pitifully 
many of both sorts ! I did not want them to stay 
in bare and cold and lonely institutions. I wanted 
to take them out of such places, and back to their 
homes; home to the village and the glen. I 
wanted to get them a wheel-chair, with an old, 
neighborly man or an old neighborly woman, 
maybe, to take them for an airing in the forenoon, 
and the afternoon, that they might breathe the 
good Scots air, and see the wild flowers growing, 
and hear the song of the birds. 

That was the plan that had for a long time been 
taking form in my mind. I had talked it over 
with some of my friends, and the newspapers had 
heard of it, somehow, and printed a few para- 
graphs about it. It was still very much in embryo 
when I went to France, but, to my surprise, the 
Scots soldiers nearly always spoke of it when I 
was talking with them. They had seen the para- 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 327 

graphs in the papers, and I soon realized that it 
loomed up as a great thing for them. 

"Aye, it's a grand thing you're thinking of, 
Harry," they said, again and again. "Now we 
know we'll no be beggars in the street, now that 
we've got a champion like you, Harry." 

I heard such words as that first from a High- 
lander at Arras, and from that moment I have 
thought of little else. Many of the laddies told 
me that the thought of being killed did not bother 
them, but that they did worry a bit about their 
future in case they went home maimed and 
helpless. 

"We're here to stay until there's no more work 
to do, if it takes twenty years, Harry, ' ' they said. 
"But it'll be a big relief to know we will be cared 
for if we must go back crippled." 

I set the sum I would have to raise to accom- 
plish the work I had in mind at a million pounds 
sterling — five million dollars. It may seem a 
great sum to some, but to me, knowing the pur- 
pose for which it is to be used, it seems small 
enough. And my friends agree with me. When 
I returned from France I talked to some Scots 
friends, and a meeting was called, in Glasgow, of 
the St. Andrews Society. I addressed it, and it 
declared itself in cordial sympathy with the idea. 
Then I went to Edinburgh, and down to London, 
and back north to Manchester. Everywhere my 
plan was greeted with the greatest enthusiasm, 



328 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

and the real organization of the fund was begun 
on September 17 and 18, 1917. 

This fund of mine is known officially as ''The 
Harry Lauder Million Pound Fund for Maimed 
Men, Scottish Soldiers and Sailors." It does not 
in any way conflict with nor overlap, any other 
work already being done. I made sure of that, 
because I talked to the Pension Minister, and his 
colleagues, in London, before I went ahead with 
my plans, and they fully and warmly approved 
everything that I planned to do. 

The Earl of Rosebery, former Prime Minister 
of Britain, is Honorary President of the Fund, 
and Lord Balfour of Burleigh is its treasurer. 
And as I write we have raised an amount well 
into six figures in pounds sterling. One of the 
things that made me most willing to undertake 
my last tour of America was my feeling that I 
could secure the support and cooperation of the 
Scottish people in America for my fund better by 
personal appeals than in any other way. At the 
end of every performance I gave during the tour, 
I told my audience what I was doing and the 
object of the fund, and, although I addressed 
myself chiefly to the Scots, there has been a most 
generous and touching response from Americans 
as well. 

We distributed little plaid-bordered envelopes, 
in which folk were in\dted to send contributions to 
the bank in New York that was the American 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 329 

depository. And after each performance Mrs. 
Lauder stood in the lobby and sold little envelopes 
full of stamps, '* sticky backs," as she called 
them, like the Red Cross seals that have been sold 
so long in America at Christmas time. She sold 
them for a quarter, or for whatever they would 
bring, and all the money went to the fund. 

I had a novel experience sometimes. Often I 
would no sooner have explained what I was doing 
than I would feel myself the target of a sort of 
bombardment. At first I thought Germans were 
shooting at me, but I soon learned that it was 
money that was being thrown! And every day 
my dressing-table would be piled high with checks 
and money orders and paper money sent direct 
to me instead of to the bank. But I had to ask 
the guid folk to cease firing — the money was too 
apt to be lost! 

Folk of all races gave liberally. I was deeply 
touched at Hot Springs, Arkansas, where the 
stage hands gave me the money they had received 
for their work during my engagement. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

1HAVE stopped for a wee digression about 
my fund. I saw many interesting things in 
France, and dreadful things. And it was 
impressed upon me more and more that the Hun 
knows no mercy. The wicked, wanton things he 
did in France, and that I saw ! 

There was Mont St. Quentin, one of the very 
strongest of the positions out of which the British 
turned him. There was a chateau there, a bonnie 
place. And hard by was a wee cemetery. The 
Hun had smashed its pretty monuments, and he 
had reached into that sacred soil with his filthy 
claws, and dragged out the dead from their 
resting-place, and scattered their helpless bones 
about. 

He ruined Peronne in wanton fury because it 
was passing from his grip. He wrecked its old 
cathedral, once one of the loveliest sights in 
France. He took away the old fleurs-de-lis from 
the great gates of Peronne. He stole and carried 
away the statues that used to stand in the old 
square. He left the great statue of St. Peter, still 
standing in the churchyard, but its thumb was 
broken off. I found it, as I rummaged about idly 
in the debris at the statue's foot. 

330 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 331 

It was no casual looting that the Huns did. 
They did their work methodically, systematically. 
It was a sight to make the angels weep. 

As I left the ruined cathedral I met a couple of 
French poilus, and tried to talk with them. But 
they spoke "very leetle" English, and I fired all 
my French words at them in one sentence. 

"Oui, oui, madame," I said. "Encore pomme 
du terre. Fini!" 

They laughed, but we did no get far with our 
talk ! Not in French. 

"You can't love the Hun much, after this," I 
said. 

"Ze Hun? Ze bloody BocheT' cried one of 
them. ' ' I keel heem all my life ! ' ' 

I was glad to quit Peronne. The rape of that 
lovely church saddened me more than almost any 
sight I saw in France. I did not care to look at 
it. So I was glad when we motored on to the 
headquarters of the Fourth Army, where I had the 
honor of meeting one of Britain's greatest sol- 
diers, General Sir Henry Eawlinson, who greeted 
us most cordially, and invited us to dinner. 

After dinner we drove on toward Amiens. We 
were swinging back now, toward Boulogne, and 
were scheduled to sleep that night at Amiens — 
which the Germans held for a few days, during 
their first rush toward Paris, before the Marne, 
but did not have time to destroy. 

Adam knew Amiens, and was made welcome, 



332 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

with the rest of us, at an excellent hotel. Von 
Kluck had made its headquarters when he swung 
that way from Brussels, and it was there he 
planned the dinner he meant to eat in Paris with 
the Kaiser. Von Kluck demanded an indemnity 
of a million dollars from Amiens to spare its 
famous old cathedral. 

It was late when we arrived, but before I slept 
I called for the boots and ordered a bottle of 
ginger ale. I tried to get him to tell me about old 
von Kluck and his stay but he couldn't talk Eng- 
lish, and was busy, anyway, trying to open the 
bottle without cutting the wire. Adam and Hogge 
are fond, to this day, of telling how I shouted at 
him, finally : 

**Well, how do you expect to open that bottle 
when you can't even talk the English language?" 

Next day was Sunday, and we went to church 
in the cathedral, which von Kluck didn't destroy, 
after all. There were signs of war ; the windows 
and the fine carved doors were banked with sand 
bags as a measure of protection from bombing 
airplanes. 

I gave my last roadside concert on the road 
from Amiens to Boulogne. It was at a little place 
called Ouef, and we had some trouble in finding 
it and more in pronouncing its name. Some of us 
called it Off, some Owf ! I knew I had heard the 
name somewhere, and I was racking my brains to 
think as Johnson set up our wee piano and I began 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 333 

to sing. Just as I finished my first song a rooster 
set up a violent crowing, in competition with me, 
and I remembered! 

* * I know where I am ! " I cried. " I 'm at Egg ! ' ' 

And that is what Oeuf means, in English ! 

The soldiers were vastly amused. They were 
Gordon Highlanders, and I found a lot of chaps 
among them frae far awa' Aberdeen. Not many 
of them are alive to-day! But that day they were 
a gay lot and a bonnie lot. There was a big 
Highlander who said to me, very gravely : 

''Harry, the only good thing I ever saw in a 
German was a British bayonet ! If you ever hear 
anyone at hame talking peace — cut off their 
heads! Or send them out to us, and we'll show 
them. There's a job to do here, and we'll 
do it. 

''Look!" he said, sweeping his arm as if to 
include all France. "Look at yon ruins! How 
would you like old England or auld Scotland to 
be looking like that? We're not only going to 
break and scatter the Hun rule, Harry. If we do 
no more than that, it will surely be reassembled 
again. We're going to destroy it." 

On the way from Oeuf to Boulogne we visited 
a small, out of the way hospital, and I sang for 
the lads there. And I was going around, after- 
ward, talking to the boys on their cots, and came 
to a young chap whose head and face were 
swathed in bandages. 



334 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

"How came you to be hurt, lad!" I asked. 

''Well, sir," he said, "we were attacking one 
morning. I went over the parapet with the rest, 
and got to the German trench all right. I wasn't 
hurt. And I went down, thirty feet deep, into one 
of their dugouts. You wouldn't think men could 
live so — but, of course, they're not men — they're 
animals! There was a lighted candle on a shelf, 
and beside it a fountain pen. It was just an 
ordinary-looking pen, and it was fair loot — I 
thought some chap had meant to write a letter, 
and forgotten his pen when our attack came. So 
I slipped it in my pocket. 

"Two days later I was going to write a few 
lines to my mother and tell her I was all right, 
so I thought I'd try my new pen. And when I 
unscrewed the cap it exploded — and, well, you see 
me, Harry ! It blew half of my face away ! ' ' 

The Hun knows no mercy. 

I was glad to see Boulogne again — the white 
buildings on the white hills, and the harbor be- 
yond. Here the itinerary of the Reverend Harry 
Lauder, M.P., Tour, came to its formal end. But, 
since there were many new arrivals in the hospi- 
tals — the population of a base shifts quickly — we 
were asked to give a couple more concerts in the 
hospitals where we had first appeared on French 
soil. 

A good many thousand Canadians had just 
come in, so I sang at Base Hospital No. 1, and 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 335 

then gave another and farewell concert at the 
great convalescent camp on the hill. And then we 
said good-by to Captain Godfrey, and the chauf- 
feurs, and to Johnson, my accompanist, ready to 
go back to his regiment now. I told them all I 
hoped that when I came to France again to sing 
we could reassemble all the original cast, and I 
pray that we may! 

On Monday we took boat again for Folkestone. 
The boat was crowded with men going home on 
leave, and I wandered among them. I heard many 
a tale of heroism and courage, of splendid sacri- 
fice and suffering nobly borne. Destroyers, as be- 
fore, circled about us, and there was no hint of 
trouble from a Hun submarine. 

On our boat was Lord Dalmeny, a King's Mes- 
senger, carrying dispatches from the front. He 
asked me how I had liked the "show." It is so 
that nearly all British soldiers refer to the 
war. 

They had earned their rest, those laddies who 
were going home to Britain. But some of them 
were half sorry to be going! I talked to one of 
them. 

''I don't know, Harry," he said. ''I was look- 
ing forward to this leave for a long time. I've 
been oot twa years. My heart jumped with joy 
at first at the thought of seeing my mother and 
the auld hame. But now that I'm started, and in 
a fair way to get there, I'm no so happy. You 



336 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

see — every young fellow frae my toon is awa'. 
I'm the only one going back. Many are dead. It 
won't be the same. I've a mind just to stay on 
London till my leave is up, and then go back. If 
I went home my mother would but burst out 
greetin', an' I think I could no stand that." 

But, as for me, I was glad, though I was sorry, 
too, to be going home. I wanted to go back again. 
But I wanted to hurry to my wife, and tell her 
what I had seen at our boy's grave. And so I 
did, so soon as I landed on British ground once 
more. 

I felt that I was bearing a message to her. A 
message from our boy. I felt — and I still feel — 
that I could tell her that all was well with him, and 
with all the other soldiers of Britain, who sleep, 
like him, in the land of the bleeding lily. They 
died for humanity, and God will not forget. 

And I think there is something for me to say to 
all those who are to know a grief such as I knew. 
Every mother and father who loves a son in this 
war must have a strong, unbreakable faith in the 
future life, in the world beyond, where you will 
see your son again. Do not give way to grief. 
Instead, keep your gaze and your faith firmly 
fixed on the world beyond, and regard your boy's 
absence as though he were but on a journey. By 
keeping your faith you will help to win this war. 
For if you lose it, the war and your personal self 
are lost. 



A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 337 

My whole perspective was changed by my visit 
to the front. Never again shall I know those mo- 
ments of black despair that used to come to me. 
In my thoughts I shall never be far away from 
the little cemetery hard by the Bapaume road. 
And life would not be worth the living for me did 
I not believe that each day brings me nearer to 
seeing him again. 

I found a belief among the soldiers in France 
that was almost universal. I found it among all 
classes of men at the front ; among men who had,, 
before the war, been regularly religious, along 
well-ordered lines, and among men who had lived 
just according to their own lights. Before the 
war, before the Hun went mad, the young men of 
Britain thought little of death or what might come 
after death. They were gay and careless, living 
for to-day. Then war came, and with it death, 
astride of every minute, every hour. And the 
young men began to think of spiritual things and 
of God. 

Their faces, their deportments, may not have 
showTi the change. But it was in their hearts. 
They would not show it. Not they ! But I have 
talked with hundreds of men along the front. And 
it is my conviction that they believe, one and all, 
that if they fall in battle they only pass on to 
another. And what a comforting belief that is! 

''It is that belief that makes us indifferent to 
danger and to death," a soldier said to me. *'We 



338 A MINSTREL IN FRANCE 

fight in a righteous cause and a holy war. God 
is not going to let everything end for us just be- 
cause the mortal life quits the shell we call the 
body. You may be sure of that." 
And I am sure of it, indeed ! 



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